It was a celebration of excess. After receiving the College charter, seal and keys from former Mass. Governor John D. Long, Class of 1857, Lowell conferred honorary degrees on scholars from national and international institutions. The Boston Symphony Orchestra performed that night in Sanders Theatre, and the day ended with a firework display that lit up the October night sky.

The next day, delegates from 216 institutions of higher education shook Lowell’s hand on the Sanders Theatre stage. The ceremony was followed by a whirlwind eating excursion for the delegates—lunch in University Hall, tea at Harvard Medical School and dinner at the Harvard Union.

For Lowell’s successor, James B. Conant ’14, pomp and circumstance was not a priority, with war on the horizon and an upcoming Tercentenary Celebration. Instead, Conant selected the Faculty Room of University Hall for his installation. Only 150 people attended. In retrospect, Conant’s secretary, Jerome Greene, maintained that the famed 1935 Tercentenary Celebration, with its audience of 15,000, was Conant’s true inauguration.

Conant’s installation was the first of what would be a series of subdued ceremonies in the University Hall Faculty Room. Nathan M. Pusey ’28 and his successor, Derek C. Bok, also chose to celebrate quietly. Bok’s installation, with 110 guests, was the smallest in Harvard’s modern history.

With the arrival of Neil L. Rudenstine in 1991, the installation returned to the Lowell model of fanfare and frippery. Rudenstine planned a program to introduce himself to Harvard and to engage the community intellectually and artistically. An outdoor ceremony followed two days of faculty symposia, concerts and literary readings.

Presidential Plans

Historically, the presidential installation ceremony has been much more than a mere display of tradition. It is a presentation of the new goals of a new president.

After receiving the symbolic keys to the University, each new Harvard president delivered a speech outlining the keys to its success. Often, these presidential pledges were the roots of Harvard’s great education reforms.

When he stepped up to the podium in 1869, Charles W. Eliot, Class of 1853, promised Harvard academic excellence across the board.

“We shall have them all,” he said, “and at their best.”

Even today, Eliot’s speech is regarded as the quintessential Harvard inauguration address, Gomes said.

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” he said.

Forty years later, Lowell turned the focus towards undergraduates, outlining his plan for a new system of concentration and distribution requirements. He suggested tutorial instruction and first-year residence halls.

“The best type of liberal education in our complex modern world,” he declared, “aims at producing men who know a little of everything and something well.”

For Harvard presidents moving into the second half of the 20th century, the turmoil of the times precluded announcements of sweeping reforms. Though later he would prove to be a great mover and shaker in the world of education, Conant claimed he had no great plans for changes at the University. Bok, speaking in the midst of the Vietnam War, told the small audience assembled in University Hall that he hoped to “renew a vision of our future that will rally faculty, students, staff and alumni to the effort that our special resources permit, and the circumstances of our times require.” For Rudenstine, the installation speech was the perfect opportunity to present his five-pronged plan for University reform, including increased community outreach, resource evaluation, improvement of undergraduate education, the creation of a University-wide agenda and the development of “special support” for the natural sciences, the applied sciences and technology.

“If we want to make progress—especially in our most heavily enrolled departments—we will have to add faculty on a selective basis,” he said. “That will take time as well as money.”

Though the subject of Summers’ address has not been made public, it will likely include the themes he has emphasized since his appointment last March—promoting undergraduate education, extending the University’s technological reach, improving the science programs, and planning for Harvard in the 21st century.

—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.