An Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) list from 1927 described the hood lining of St. John’s University as being bright red with a bright blue chevron. An identical description appeared in a 1948 IBAC list, which suggests the red fabric sample the university sent to the IBAC was more scarlet than cardinal. That said, a 1972 IBAC list modified the shade of the university’s hood lining to (plain) red – more in line with a true cardinal shade – again with a bright blue chevron. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) used the official university definition of its colors and described St. John’s hood lining as cardinal with a blue chevron.

These hood linings are easily confused with the hood linings the Intercollegiate Bureau assigned to the A.T. Still University of Health Sciences, Hanover College, or the University of Pennsylvania.

So to avoid this problem, and to suggest the affiliation with the College of St. Benedict, to which the IBAC had assigned a reversed chevron, here the chevron in St. John’s hood lining has likewise been inverted. Also, St. John’s lining colors have been interchanged so that the hood linings of both schools display a reversed red chevron.