The keynote event, the ceremony bestowing the presidency upon Summers, will follow on Friday afternoon in Tercentenary Theatre.

The entire Harvard community will be invited to the installation ceremony—students will receive formal invitations in the mail this fall. The ceremony, O’Neill said, will include a student speaker, as well as addresses by members of Harvard’s governing boards, a representative from the world of higher education. But the focus will be on the new president, who address the assembled crowds.

Then, in a part of the ceremony governed by Harvard tradition, artifacts will be passed, Latin read, and Summers installed.

Music will be provided by a combined choir drawn from across the University, a rare collaboration that will mean over 200 student voices.

Harvard’s presidential inaugurations have varied in size and intent. The inaugural events of former University President James B. Conant ‘14 and the university’s tercentennial were for all intents and purposes one and the same. Derek C. Bok’s installation was a modest affair. His successor and Summers’ predecessor, Neil L. Rudenstine, had one of the first grand inaugural galas in memory as he embarked on the first University-wide Capital Campaign.

Summers’ ceremony is likely to end up falling somewhere in the middle.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.