‘Frozen’ songwriters: Find your own voice and refuse to let it go

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez started the best way they could: with a song. 

Opening their Family Weekend keynote with “I Wish I Could Go Back to College” from “Avenue Q,” the celebrated songwriters, composers and Brown parents offered the audience a candid, humorous glimpse into the creativity, collaboration and family experiences behind their best-known work.

"We met on the night that he sang his first song for ‘Avenue Q’," Anderson-Lopez said, reflecting on their early days in a songwriting workshop before eventually co-writing iconic songs for stage and screen. Now married with children, their credits include Disney’s “Frozen,” Pixar’s “Coco” and Broadway’s “The Book of Mormon.” 

Their family was closely intertwined with the making of “Frozen,” which centers on the relationship between sisters Anna and Elsa. When Lopez first saw early concept art for the film, he immediately thought of his wife. 

“This is what Kristen is meant to do,” he said. “If there’s one thing she knows about, it’s sisterhood.” 

Anderson-Lopez has twin sisters, but it was watching their own daughters interact that helped the couple unlock the emotional heart of the film. 

“We finally cracked it when we watched our own children, the younger one constantly knocking at the door of the older one saying, ‘Play with me, play with me!’ and the older one constantly saying, ‘Go away, I have a friend over, I'm reading a book,’” Anderson-Lopez said. 

In a poignant highlight of the night, their daughter Kat Lopez, a senior at Brown, performed “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” Her voice was already part of the film: Kat sang young Anna’s part in the song included in the original 2013 “Frozen” soundtrack.

“The cool thing about making ‘Frozen,’ in addition to getting to involve both of our daughters, was seeing Kristen kind of come into her power — we were writing this story about women finding their power while a woman that I love very much was doing just that,” Lopez said. 

Becoming parents changed how the songwriters thought about the purpose of their work, Anderson-Lopez said. The family’s own bedtime lullabies even helped inspire “Remember Me,” the Oscar-winning song from “Coco.”

She encouraged students pursuing creative careers to trust their own voices.

"No one has ever experienced all the experiences that you've had, no one's had the dreams that you've had... It is an incredible, one-of-a-kind world, your head…" she said. "If you can just learn to open up your head and pour a little of that out… that is gold." 

President’s welcome to Family Weekend

In a packed Salomon Center for Teaching, Brown University President Christina H. Paxson welcomed families and loved ones to campus on Saturday evening ahead of a sold-out Family Weekend keynote featuring award-winning composers and songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.

“I hope you’re all getting to witness what makes Brown such a wonderful place for students,” Paxson said. 

She encouraged families to look for signs that their children feel at home at Brown, that they’ve found a sense of belonging and have laid the foundation for friendships that will last a lifetime. Paxson also laid to rest the “lingering myth” that Brown’s Open Curriculum is an easy way for students to avoid difficult coursework. 

“You are likely hearing something quite different,” she said. “Brown students are serious about academics, and the Open Curriculum does lend itself to academic rigor. When students take courses that they want to take, they are more engaged in their learning, and this impacts their learning and the joy of teaching at Brown.” 

But with that rigor must come a bit of restraint, Paxson noted. Students, especially in their first year, tend to want to take on everything at once, from demanding courseloads to campus performances and clubs.

“It can be a lot,” Paxson said. “And one area where families can be especially helpful is a little nudging, like, ‘Let’s talk about how you’re going to balance all that, and are you getting enough sleep?’ Support from families in helping students achieve that sort of perspective and balance can be really important.”

The Bears best Cornell in a thriller, honor University’s first Ivy League championship 50 years ago

Days before Brown’s football team was set to take on Cornell at Brown Stadium during Family Weekend, senior business economics concentrator and linebacker Stefano Montella talked about the challenge the Bears would face against their Ivy League rival.

“It just begins with how bad we want it,” the New Jersey native said on the Brown Bears Podcast. “We have got to give credit where credit's due; Cornell had a fantastic game last week. But I think with everyone coming back to Brown this weekend — our families are all going to be here — we just need to be grittier than Cornell. We saw on film how bad they wanted to beat Lehigh, and we need to bring that same energy when it comes to this Saturday.”

The Bears did precisely that, besting the Big Red 38-31 in an overtime thriller.

On a picture-perfect Saturday afternoon, family members, alumni and others gathered to cheer, with Brunonian spirit on full display as fans waved Brown pennants and sang along with the Brown Band. Brown trailed 31-17 headed into the fourth quarter, before a rally capped off by a 9-yard touchdown catch by junior running back Matt Childs tied the game on the final play of regulation. Childs scored again on the first play of overtime, with a 25-yard touchdown scamper that gave the Bears the lead, and the defense held Cornell on four plays to seal the win.

While rooting for the 2026 Bears, fans also honored alumni of Brown's 1976 football team, which delivered the University its first Ivy League title (shared with Yale) 50 years ago. A dozen or so members of that legendary team were on hand to be honored at the end of the first quarter. Known for a stifling defense that gave up no more than 21 points in any single game, the ’76 Bears finished the season 8-1 overall and 6-1 in Ivy League play. 

Families experience a day in the life of their Warren Alpert Medical School student

Parents and families are an integral part of Brown’s medical education community, but busy students may not always have time to fill people in on what’s happening in their lives. In addition to the weekend’s events on College Hill, the medical school organizes its own Medical Family Weekend, with a robust schedule of activities, including tours of the Warren Alpert Medical School building in Providence’s Jewelry District. 

“I always leap at the opportunity to lead tours because I like showing families what their kids are involved in,” said third-year medical student Nishant Jayachandran. “The medical school is so much more than a place where someone gets an M.D. It is also a place where people spend very formative years during a very rigorous time in their education. I really enjoy having the opportunity to invite families into our world for a little while.” 

Jayachandran, who has led tours since his first year, brings visitors through the places medical students often visit during their day: lecture halls, the medical library (“a great place to study but also weirdly social”), the newly renovated gym and the roof deck where he’s spent a lot of time with classmates.

Third-year medical student tour leader Teni Ayeni also enjoys bringing visitors to the deck.

“That's one of my favorite places in the building,” Ayeni said. “In regard to student wellness, having the gym is really nice, but having that outdoor area with its beautiful view is also so helpful, especially on stressful days.”

Ayeni’s guests for the weekend included her parents, who flew in from Toronto. This wasn’t the first time they’d visited Brown (Ayeni is part of the eight-year Program in Liberal Medical Education), but they still loved visiting the Warren Alpert Medical School building.

“I think they're just excited to be here for all the Family Weekend excitement,” she said.

‘Like a college brochure’: Families reunite, explore campus as Brown’s Family Weekend kicks off 

As Pat and Leigh Topp waited for their son, Kalen Browne, a junior concentrating in mechanical engineering, to finish classes on Friday afternoon, they were among hundreds of family members arriving for the start of the University’s annual Family Weekend. 

Alongside Kalen’s sister Riley and grandmother Janet Mooney, all of whom traveled to Providence from Dayton, Ohio, the couple soaked in the quintessential New England fall atmosphere on Brown’s College Green. They enjoyed warm sunshine, crisp autumn air, trees bursting with golden and orange leaves and the sweet aroma of apple cider doughnuts and other treats served by the Brown Bakeshop and local food vendors lining the walkways.

The family stopped in Sayles Hall to admire its historic pipe organ before reuniting with Kalen, who was eager to show them his favorite spots on and off campus, from the Brown Design Workshop and Sciences Library, known as the “SciLi,” to Providence’s Prospect Terrace Park with sweeping views of the city. 

The weekend itinerary also included Saturday’s football game against Cornell, WaterFire Providence and a group dinner with Kalen’s friends and their families.

For Mooney, a former commuter student at Wright State University in Dayton, the visit offered a chance to explore aspects of college life she had never experienced firsthand, including a college football game. She was immediately struck by the lively atmosphere across campus. 

“Here, with the cornhole and Frisbee-throwing and all of that, it just looks like a college brochure,” Mooney said. “It helps now to picture where he is. If he says, ‘I did this or I did that,’ then I can picture it better.”

Brown Center for Students of Color welcomes students, families during 50th anniversary open house 

Brown University Class of 1990 graduate Elizabeth Wang remembers stopping by Partridge Hall, home of the Brown Center for Students of Color, as a student to meet with a professor. 

More than three decades later and now a Brown parent, Wang returned to the center for an open house during Family Weekend and marveled at the thriving community space that has emerged, including comfortable lounge areas, study spaces and a kitchen. 

“It’s so nice that it’s right here in the heart of campus,” said Wang, who lives in Pittsburgh and whose child, Rho Bloom-Wang, is an undergraduate at Brown. “It seems like a lot of thought has been put into this space.” 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the Brown Center for Students of Color welcomed students and their families on Friday to take tours, eat cupcakes and peruse an archive room brimming with decades of meaningful history. 

Open to all University community members, the center provides a welcoming physical space, as well as events and programs, including a long-running pre-orientation program, that center the experiences of people of color on campus. 

The archival exhibition, created in partnership with the Brown University Library, features letters, videos, promotional materials and other items documenting the five-decade history of the center, which traces its roots to student activism in the 1960s and 1970s and began in the basement of the University’s Churchill House.   

“We want alums, parents and students to see what our history is,” said Vincent Harris, director of the center. “We’re standing on the shoulders of student leaders who fought for this space and continued to build it over the years.”