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.”