Fordham Heraldry

The Fordham University Seal

The Great Seal of Fordham University proclaims that Fordham has been a Jesuit university since its founder, Archbishop John Hughes, entrusted it to the care of the Society of Jesus in 1846.

Hence, the coat of arms of the Society of Jesus stands at its center. The coat of arms bears the Greek letters for the name Jesus—IHS—with the cross resting in the horizontal line of the letter H, and the three nails beneath, all in gold in a field framed in maroon, the color of the University, with silver fleurs-de-lis on the frame’s edge. Around the Society’s coat of arms, a scroll with the University’s motto, Sapientia et Doctrina (Wisdom and Learning), is etched, surrounded by tongues of fire that recall the outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit of Wisdom (sapientia) that mark the first Pentecost.

A laurel wreath surrounding the names of the disciplines that are or have been taught at the University rests at the top of the seal. (The University had a medical school from 1905 to 1921 and a College of Pharmacy from 1912 to 1971.) These central heraldic devices are enclosed within a circular field fashioned as a belt and edged with beads. The field bears the University’s name (rendered in Latin) and the date of its foundation. Fordham University is one of only two institutions in the world whose seals are enclosed with a belt surround. Oxford University, the mother of the universities in the English-speaking world, is the other.