Franciscan University of Steubenville
Ohio
1946
Formerly “the College of Steubenville”
Historical information about the school colors of the College of Steubenville is sparse. The original colors of the college were Kelly green and old gold, but over time the official shade of green has darkened. Today the university describes its colors as forest green and “Vegas gold” (a dark gold or old gold).
To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. One of the heraldic divisions the Bureau employed was a “triple chevron”. The typical width of a normal chevron was between three and four inches, but the triple chevron pattern used three chevrons of about 1½ inches in width placed approximately two inches apart so that the color of the hood lining showed between them.
The IBAC assigned the College of Steubenville a hood lining that was old gold with three Kelly green chevrons in the late 1940s or 1950s. Lists compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970), as well as an IBAC list from 1972, all described the college’s hood lining as old gold with three Kelly green chevrons. Since the IBAC had not assigned any other college or university a hood lined old gold with a single bright green chevron, nor assigned any college or university a hood lined old gold with two green chevrons of any shade, the Catholic college’s three chevrons may have been intended to symbolize the Trinity.