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The university will host multiple academic forums and cultural events during the week of President Fred Lawrence’s inauguration on March 31. A student art exhibition, a musical performance by the Brandeis string quartet, a graduate student symposium and a Rose Art exhibit are other events that will take place during the inauguration week.

On April 2, the university is hosting an inaugural ball in Gosman with music from the White Heat Swing Orchestra. In an effort to celebrate the community’s diversity, attendees are asked to wear attire from their native cultures.

Prior to the official ceremony in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, faculty and alumni Judith Shapiro ’63 and Michael Sandel ’75 will participate in discussions about the global role of a liberal arts university.

Shapiro, who served as the chair of the anthropology at the University of Chicago and spent 14 years as president of Barnard College, will moderate discussions on March 28 about university finances and science and creativity in a liberal arts education.

Sandel, a professor of government at Harvard who teaches the undergraduate course “Justice,” will moderate discussions about diversity, immigration and social justice on March 29.

“The overarching theme of this week, as stated by Fred, is that Brandeis is a global liberal arts university,” Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Marty Krauss wrote in an e-mail. “The panels will each explore the challenges of the vision for us as an educational institution. Each will be moderated by distinguished alumni of the University.”

Delegates representing other colleges and universities have been invited to attend events on inauguration day, Andrew Gully, Senior Vice President for Communications wrote in an e-mail.

Members of the Honorary Committee, a group of “of prominent representatives of constituencies that are important to Brandeis” include Governor Deval Patrick, Senator John Kerry, Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian, Representative Edward Markey and Waltham Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy.

In a campus wide email on last month, Krauss wrote that both she and Lawrence decided classed should still take place on March 31, the day of the inauguration.