We introduce the concept of a stationary random manifold with the objective of treating in a unified way results about manifolds with transitive isometry group, manifolds with a compact quotient, and generic leaves of compact foliations. We prove inequalities relating linear drift and entropy of Brownian motion with the volume growth of such manifolds, generalizing previous work by Avez, Kaimanovich, and Ledrappier among others. In the second part we prove that the leaf function of a compact foliation is semicontinuous, obtaining as corollaries Reeb's local stability theorem, part of Epstein's the local structure theorem for foliations by compact leaves, and a continuity theorem of Álvarez and Candel.
