Siena College
New York
1937
Formerly “St. Bernardine of Siena College”
The faculty of St. Bernadine of Siena College selected green and gold as the school’s colors when the college opened in 1937 to symbolize vigor and strength (green) paired with truth (gold). The green was originally a vivid and bright shade of emerald or Kelly green, but vintage memorabilia from the college can exhibit a wide variation of bright, medium, and dark greens.
St. Bernadine of Siena College did not appear in a 1948 Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) list. But based upon a photograph in the 16 October 1950 edition of Life magazine (illustrated at left), at some point between 1948 and 1950 the IBAC assigned St. Bernadine of Siena College a hood lining that was either gold above green, divided per chevron, or green with a gold chevron – the photo does not clearly show the lining pattern.
Adding to this uncertainty, a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the college’s hood lining as forest green with a gold reversed (or “inverted”) chevron. However, in Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970) Sheard later said that Siena’s hood lining was “emerald green” with a gold chevron (not reversed). A 1972 IBAC list similarly cited the college’s hood as “green” with a gold chevron.
Both of these later lining descriptions were similar to the hood linings of the Pacific School of Religion (emerald green with a gold chevron) and Oklahoma Baptist University (green with a gold chevron), so the unique and unusual hood lining pattern Siena was apparently using in 1962 has been restored here.