Your guide to Brown’s online offerings for alumni and friends

At home because of the coronavirus? Learn more about the many ways Brown alumni can virtually connect, learn, and even seek inner peace.

To help slow the spread of COVID-19, more and more people are hunkering down at home. While social distancing is a must, coronavirus-induced cabin fever doesn't have to be.

As a Brown alum, you have a plethora of resources available to help you build your connections, practice self care, and gain some new knowledge. From Rosetta Stone to meditation sessions to BrownConnect, learn about the oodles of digital services, activities, and platforms from Brown that you could be using right now.

But first things first: make sure to set up your Brown Account. Claiming your account grants access to many benefits and services, including several of the great resources below.

  1. Rosetta Stone: That's right: you can learn a language while cooped up at home. Alumni have free access to Rosetta Stone. Choose from 30 languages and learn at your own pace with expert guidance and immediate feedback.
  2. BrownConnect: Tap into the vast reservoir of career knowledge in our alumni community. Use BrownConnect for advice, stories, and more from alumni in your field. Or, help provide students with career advice and opportunities during this time of uncertainty.
  3. Brown Arts Initiative at Home: Looking for something on the more creative side? The Brown Arts Initiative recently launched BAI at Home. This new website has everything: online events, collaborative art projects, resources for artists, live concerts, interviews with the broader arts community, and much more.
  4. Library Eresources:  All the perks of library access without the stress of final exams. Alumni have free access to online journals, books, newspapers, and more for your personal use.
  5. Mindfulness Sessions: Now's as good a time as any to find your center. The Mindfulness Center at Brown has expanded its community offerings and is now offering live online sessions once a day.
  6. Virtual Communities: Just because you're practicing social distancing doesn't mean you have to distance yourself from your beloved Brown community. Keep Brunonia close by joining your local Brown club or connect with your class and suggest some virtual meet-ups. Find a long lost Brunonian in the Alumni Directory. And if you haven't already, join the Brown alumni LinkedIn group just for alumni, students, and faculty who wish to connect with each other professionally. The alumni office will verify the status of each prospective member before approving the request to join.
  7. Virtual Campus Tour: Missing College Hill? See what's changed (and what's stayed the same) when you go on a virtual tour of the campus from the comfort of your couch.
  8. Women's Voices Amplified Podcast: Searching for a new podcast? Hear incredible women from all corners of the Brunonia ecosystem share their insights on the big questions of work, life, and living in today's world. Recent guests have included concussion expert Teena Shetty '95 MD'00 and authors Meg Wolitzer '81 and Lois Lowry '58. Find it on SpotifyStitcherSoundcloud or YouTube.
  9. Community Conversations: There's a new way to hear from the best minds from Brown. Hosted by President Christina H. Paxson, Community Conversations is a new virtual discussion series featuring some of the University's leading scholars and experts from around the world.
  10. Virtual Events | Many events at Brown have now gone virtual. From faculty webinars to living room concerts, browse the events calendar for a variety of happenings you can attend from home. 

Other digital resources from Brown to check out:

  • Brown Library Archives | access to a wide range of University and other historical collections 
  • Watson Institute YouTube channel and SoundCloud | featuring faculty lectures, podcasts, and more about global politics and current issues
  • Choices Program | free video content from its online curriculum, focused on the relationship between history and current issues
  • Pembroke Center Oral History Project | featuring digitized interviews, transcripts, biographies and photographs of Brown alumnae, faculty, and staff from as far back as 1907
  • Radical Roots: Nourishing Feminist Work | a blog from the Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender
  • Handshake | set up job alerts and find positions specifically targeted for alumni 
  • Checkster | an employee self-evaluation tool that collects confidential feedback from your colleagues and provides a summary of results
  • Brown Entrepreneurship Slack workspace | a new space where students and alumni interested in entrepreneurship can engage together, from the Nelson Center's Brown Entrepreneurship Program and Alumni Relations
  • Faculty in Focus: The Podcast | a podcast hosted by Provost Richard Locke featuring the work of some of Brown's most compelling faculty members
  • 30,000 Leagues podcast | a podcast from The Policy Lab, featuring recent discussions on coronavirus-related policies and response

 

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