At 262nd Opening Convocation, Brown’s newest students are encouraged to embrace growth, transition

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Excited cheers, applause, bagpipes and chiming bells on Brown's historic campus resonated across College Hill as the University welcomed more than 3,200 new students at its 262nd Opening Convocation on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

Waving Brown pennants and celebrating, new undergraduate, graduate and medical students from across the country and the world streamed onto the College Green through the Van Wickle Gates - which open only for Convocation and Commencement exercises each year - for a time-honored tradition that ushered in the start of the 2025-26 academic year.

From the steps of the Stephen Robert '62 Campus Center, Brown President Christina H. Paxson welcomed the new students and urged them to help sustain Brown's thriving academic community while daring to take risks, pursue novel ideas, and engage with people with different perspectives and experiences.

"Taking risks - trying things with uncertain outcomes -is part of learning, and learning is what you are here to do," Paxson said. "The Brown environment is designed to support you as you take risks [and] we want you to push yourself while you're here, intellectually and socially, to try things that take you out of your comfort zone."

Whether they embrace Brown's Open Curriculum to explore unfamiliar subjects or push the boundaries of their fields and challenge the status quo, each student will benefit from a diverse community of thinkers who are bound by the qualities that distinguish Brown students, Paxson said.