The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) employed to divide the two or three colors in an institution’s hood, but beginning in 1895 the “parti per chevron” was also used quite frequently. Here the two school colors were placed in the hood lining one above the other, with the division between them following the shape of a chevron. Later the Bureau began to use a per reversed chevron division and a division per bar on rare occasions. Confusingly, in IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hoods were described as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]” which referred either to a hood lining divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar, and today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the IBAC intended to describe.

Early descriptions of the hood lining of Niagara College vary. Around 1902 the Intercollegiate Bureau assigned the college a hood lining described in a 1927 list as “white above purple”. A 1948 list from the Bureau revised this description to “white and purple”, which usually indicated a vertical division of the hood colors (a division “per pale”). Finally, a 1972 IBAC list said the hood was purple with a white chevron, which must have been erroneous as this would have been a duplication of the hood lining the Bureau assigned Amherst College in 1895 or 1896.

To echo the heraldry of Niagara’s coat of arms, the university’s earliest Intercollegiate Bureau hood lining pattern has been retained, with the two colors divided horizontally (per bar).