Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927 and 1948 described the various iterations of the College of New Jersey as having a hood lined navy blue with a gold chevron. Unfortunately, this was essentially a duplication of the hood lining the IBAC had already assigned several institutions by 1918: Goucher College (dark blue with a gold yellow chevron), the University of Pittsburgh (navy blue with a gold yellow chevron), and Simmons College (dark blue with a gold chevron). To resolve this problem, the Bureau inverted the chevron used on the College of New Jersey’s hood in the late 1940s or 1950s. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the College of New Jersey’s hood lining as dark blue with a gold “reversed” chevron.

All of the name changes for the college played havoc with the Bureau’s records. A 1972 IBAC list had a double citation for the college: one for “New Jersey State University” (navy blue with a gold chevron) and another citation for “Trenton State University” (blue with a gold reversed chevron), as if the Bureau did not realize the two names and hood assignments referred to the same college.

Unfortunately, even the new Intercollegiate Bureau hood for the College of New Jersey was problematic – it was indistinguishable from the hood lining the Bureau had assigned to Marquette University (Yale blue with a gold reversed chevron). To correct these problems, the College of New Jersey has been reassigned a unique hood lining: dark blue with two reversed gold chevrons.