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By this time next year, the Memorial Art Gallery will be well into its “Free For All, Forever” initiative, a commitment to eliminate the cost of general admission for all visitors.
More than $9 million in contributions made this possible and will sustain free general admission in perpetuity. Substantial donations came from civic leader Abby Bennett, MAG and University of Rochester trustee Doug Bennett, the Sands Family Foundation, former Wegmans executive Mary Ellen Burris, and philanthropists Alexander and Lucy Levitan.
“By making general admission free forever, we’re not only returning to the public-spirited, educational mission of our museum, but opening the doors wider to the people of Rochester and creating more opportunities for everyone to experience, learn from and connect with art,” says Sarah Jesse, the museum’s Mary W. and Donald R. Clark director.
The museum has set May 1, 2027, as the date for free admission to begin, with the first free exhibit being Isamu Noguchi’s “I am not a designer.” Special programming for the launch date includes a talk by mural artist Caroline Kent after the unveiling of her work in the museum’s pavilion, Creative Workshop tours, food, music, and a StART with a Story event for children and their families.
One element that Adam Koneman, MAG’s Estelle B. Goldman museum educator for school and community partnerships, says helped prepare for the “Free For All, Forever” change was MAG’s school trips. PreK-12 students have been visiting the museum for free since August 2024, with some schools also eligible for a $200 transportation reimbursement.
Last year, MAG conducted tours with 30 school districts and 11,838 students. More than 900 students brought families back to the museum with free return-visit postcards they received on the tour.
The Beacon spoke with Koneman during the 2026 Educator Open House about free school visits, training new docents, the importance of arts-based education, and connecting with the community.
ROCHESTER BEACON: In the lead up to “Free For All, Forever,” what preparations have you been undertaking or changes have you been considering?
ADAM KONEMAN: Yeah, so a big one is we just trained 42 new docents. (There were 30 active docents last year.)
We saw that the biggest need was going to be for school tours, because that’s the largest audience that comes for tours. So, we wanted to make sure that we prioritized that need.
But that gave us some really great insights into the training that will probably need to happen in another year or two for another group of docents, anticipating that there will be needs for evening and weekend hours, rather than just the school tour time.
So, I think we’ve been trying to take a step back and ask questions like: What are we already doing that we can scale up and just do for a larger audience? What are new opportunities to engage with folks that we are currently connected to? Are there opportunities to say, “That’s no longer a priority,” and we need to shift gears and resources in a new direction?
This huge initiative kind of gives you the space to have those conversations, to take a step back and do the preparation. Sometimes you’re just kind of in it during the course of a year providing tours and learning opportunities and you just keep doing what you’ve been doing.
So, this is a good opportunity to ask, what is it that we do well and we want to continue doing? If we evaluate it, do we want to keep doing it, or is this a chance to kind of try something different? And what are the things that we are excited about maybe doing that are new and different?
ROCHESTER BEACON: So, the big initiative before “Free For All, Forever,” as you mentioned, was making tours free for schools. Tell me about how it has impacted the museum since being instituted.
KONEMAN: I think with the initiative to have free school tours, we really saw an immediate bump in our numbers.
Obviously, every museum and institution saw a drop in attendance because of COVID. So, we’ve slowly been building back up to those pre-COVID numbers. So, I think we’re excited about “Free For All, Forever,” knowing that access is a really important thing.
But just making free admission possible isn’t enough. It takes partnership, it takes community collaboration. And I think school tours are a major part of the work that will help bring people to the museum.
Again, because the students can go home and say, “I went to the museum today.” And now they know that they can go back for free and come check out a new exhibition. Or participate in creative workshop camps or classes. Or come for other programming that’s happening at the museum. I think it’s an exciting opportunity. And school tours have proven that there is a need and a desire for that access.
I mean, I’ve had conversations with folks in the community who are adults that have lived here their entire lives that have said, “I’ve never been to the museum. I guess I never really thought about it.”
And so, we know that if we can have students have a really positive experience early on, that motivates them to come back. They want to share their family, show them what they learned about, show them what they looked at. It’s an opportunity for them to continue that exploration of art and creativity.
ROCHESTER BEACON: When you talk about an arts-based education, what does that look like? Why do you think it’s an important tool for learning?
KONEMAN: With our academic and community programs, there are three pillars that we’re really committed to in all of our offerings for students and teachers. We want them to experience creativity, curiosity, and connection. And part of making that happen is that we want to make sure that the students are the ones driving the experience on a tour.
Rather than having a docent or a guide lecture, talk to them, tell them what to think about a painting, it’s really giving them the tools to notice what they observe in the work and then come up with their own interpretations and ask questions. For them to be the ones driving that conversation, the docents and the guides are there to help facilitate a really positive experience, but it really should be the students developing those tools and the language to be able to do it for themselves.
ROCHESTER BEACON: How important is the connection between the museum and the community toward making some of those things happen then?
KONEMAN: I think it’s important for students to have that experience and for learning to not just happen in the walls of the classroom, but to be happening outside in the community too, so that speaks to how important our connections to schools and teachers are and how important events like this (Educator Open House) are.
We’re really focused on celebrating teachers and the role that they play in our community. So, we’re wanting to celebrate the start of a new school year and make sure that they have all of the information about our offerings for school tours and teacher professional development workshops.
We know that teachers are a core audience for us because for many students in the community, their first entry into the museum is through a school tour. We really value the opportunity to partner with teachers and to support them in the work that they do.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
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