University Shield

The University Shield, or coat of arms, is a symbol associated with Columbia. Some schools and divisions of the University use their own variation on the shield. However, most use the crown, and usage of the shield is becoming rarer. It has disappeared from the Law School's website, the podium used at University public events, the Soccer team uniforms, etc. Its use is technically regulated by the Secretary of the University.

Not counting variations on the King's Crown, the shield is the most recent symbol adopted by the University. Columbia officials unveiled the new symbol on February 10, 1949. It was designed by Milton Halsey Thomas, curator of Columbiana, Phillip M Hayden, then Secretary of the University, and Harold H. Booth of Trenton N.J., a specialist in heraldry.

As adopted by the trustees in 1949, the design consists of a blue shield, a white chevron, and three gold crowns. Heraldically its described as "Azure (blue), Chevron Argent (silver), Three Crowns or (gold)." The blue and white colors were drawn from the traditional school colors (which in turn were drawn respectively from the Philolexian Society and the Peithologian Society.) The shield-with-chevron design was a nod to the coat-of-arms of Samuel Johnson, and the crowns an allusion to the original Crown of King's College. An optional blue ribbon below the shield bears the school motto.

In some illustrations of the shield, a lions head in profile facing left with tongue stuck out is above the shield. This is another nod to the Johnson family coat-of-arms, which had three such lions heads on its shield. The GS shield incorporates one of these lions head onto its shield design, and an original sketch for the GS shield copies the lion directly. A proposed shield for SEAS replaces the lower crown on the shield with crossed hammers. .

The similarity to the Oxford shield is possibly coincidental. Interestingly, King's College was once envisioned to be the first university in North America, in the mold of Oxford and Cambridge, and the second President of King's College, Myles Cooper, was an Oxford-educated priest. But the shield was conceived long after King's College was a memory, and the design was largely based on the Johnson coat-of-arms, though perhaps some inspiration was taken from old Oxford.

One of the shield's purposes was to serve as a loosely regulated but official ornamental symbol of the school, since the University Seal, Columbia's oldest symbol, was and still is reserved for purposes of symbolic legal authentication. An informative leaflet states that "The design of the shield is the copyrighted property of the University, and while general permission to reproduce it is freely given, any debasement or undignified use of it may result in such permission being rescinded. It may be used as a decoration without special permission by graduates and members of the University, and may be reproduced in proper form on stationary, and on jewelry and pottery."

Today the shield is sparingly used even in its officially sanctioned purpose as the official unofficial symbol of the school, having been superseded by the King's Crown.

Pictures

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  University Shield

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  Shield design currently in favor in the Bookstore. Note the different crowns

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  Older University design, from 1963 yearbook

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  Older design embedded in a yearbook cover from the 1980s

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  The University of Oxford Shield

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  The School of General Studies Shield

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  Early version of the GS Shield

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  CUMB Logo

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  Shield on the podium

References

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