Brown College hosts two programs for guest speakers.  The Brown College Visiting Resident Fellows come to Brown for one week per semester, during which they give a reading or performance, offer a lecture or talk on their area of expertise, eat meals with students in the dining hall, and attend unstructured social events with students in the portals and Monroe Hill House.  The first Visiting Resident Fellow was author and Brown alumna Sandra Beasley; upcoming Fellows include journalist Brendan Fitzgerald of the Columbia Journalism Review, author Sierra Bellows, and poet Leah Green.

The Speakers Series brings visitors for a lecture or reading.  Recent speakers include journalist and essayist Jeff Sharlet, poet Dave Lucas, essayist Erica Cavanagh, and editor Allison Wright of Virginia Quarterly Review.

Each spring, Brown College students give a series of Friday afternoon lectures and discussions, the Brown Talks, on topics of their own interest and expertise.  Recent presentations have addressed plastics, synesthesia in music, communal living, chess, neural networks, gluten-free living, and the history of Brown College.