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. Some of the heraldic divisions the Bureau employed were the “double chevron” (two thin chevrons), the “reversed chevron” (inverted chevron), and the “reversed double chevron”.

The College for Jewish Studies did not appear in early IBAC lists from 1927 or 1948, so the IBAC might not have assigned the college a hood lining until the late 1940s or 1950s. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the college’s hood lining as light blue with a white reversed chevron, which was also how it was described in an IBAC list from 1972. Unfortunately this was identical to the hood lining the Bureau had assigned to St. Mary-of-the-Woods College at some point before 1927. To resolve this problem, the reversed chevron in the hood lining for the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership has been tripled to resemble the flame in the institute’s logo.