This week’s inauguration ceremony for Dennis Assanis, the 28th president of the University of Delaware, will include remarks by the vice president of the United States, who is a UD alumnus, and by the leader of a prestigious group of higher education institutions.

Vice President Joe Biden and Mary Sue Coleman, president of the Association of American Universities, will be featured speakers at the ceremony, which also will include remarks by Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and an inaugural address by Assanis.

The inauguration ceremony is scheduled at 10 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7, in the Thompson Theatre of the Roselle Center for the Arts. The event will be live streamed on the University’s Inauguration website and at UD Live.

Special security measures will be in place and those who plan to attend are advised to arrive at 8 a.m.

John Cochran, chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees, will preside at the ceremony, which also will include musical performances by the University of Delaware Chorale and violinist Xiang Gao, Trustee Distinguished Professor of Music; a reading by Babatunde Ogunnaike, dean of the College of Engineering; and remarks by Anne Giacoma Barretta, president of the University of Delaware Alumni Association.

Joe Biden was elected vice president of the United States in 2008 after a 36-year career in the U.S. Senate. He is a 1965 graduate of the University, earning a bachelor’s degree with a double major in history and political science. He also holds an honorary doctor of laws degree from UD.

A frequent visitor to his alma mater, Biden has spoken at four UD Commencement ceremonies (in 1978, 1987, 2004 and 2014). He donated his Senatorial papers to the University of Delaware Library in 2011, when he also delivered the inaugural James R. Soles Lecture on the Constitution and Citizenship. In 1984, he was inducted into the University’s Alumni Wall of Fame.

His wife, Jill Biden, earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from UD, and she will be attending the ceremony with her husband.

Mary Sue Coleman has served as president of the Association of American Universities since May 2016. From 2002-14, she was president of the University of Michigan, where she is now president and professor emerita. Previously, she was president of the University of Iowa from 1995-2002.

Time magazine named Coleman one of the nation’s “10 best college presidents,” and the American Council on Education honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Elected to the National Academy of Medicine, she is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

When Dennis Assanis was elected the University’s next president by a unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees in November 2015, Cochran called him “an academic leader, a distinguished scholar and an inspiring educator” and said, “I am confident that his personal commitment to the power of education and his extensive experience in the classroom and the laboratory will serve the University of Delaware well in the years to come.”

Previously, Assanis served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Stony Brook University in New York, and earlier he had a distinguished career at the University of Michigan for 17 years.

Celebrating UD

Additional celebratory activities scheduled the week of Dec. 5 include:

• A reception for all undergraduate and graduate students to celebrate UD with Assanis and his family from 5-6:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 5, in the West Lounge of the Perkins Student Center. Food and refreshments will be provided.

• An academic symposium, “Ideas that Dare to Change the World,” hosted by Provost Domenico Grasso and featuring distinguished UD faculty members describing their work, beginning at 1:45 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7, in the Roselle Center’s Thompson Theatre. The symposium will be live streamed on the University’s Inauguration website and at UD Live.

• A campus innovation tour of UD research facilities, including STAR Campus, the Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory and the Center for Biomedical and Brain Imaging. The bus will leave the Roselle Center for the Arts at 3:30 p.m. and end at the Courtyard Newark-University of Delaware at 5:45 p.m.

• A welcome reception in Georgetown, scheduled from 7-9 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 8, at the Elbert N. and Ann V. Carvel Research and Education Center, 16483 County Seat Highway, Georgetown.