Cooley Gallery Director Stephanie Snyder '91 founded the program in 2004, and organizes the program with Cooley Gallery Education Outreach Coordinator Gregory MacNaughton '89. Both Snyder and MacNaughton have extensive experience offering arts education to young people. While in graduate school at Columbia University, Snyder co-founded The Heritage School, an arts-based public high school developed by Columbia University in partnership with the New York City Board of Education (www.heritageschool.org) and Gregory MacNaughton has served as an educator in a myriad of youth programs throughout Portland since 1990.

The Open Gallery Program (OGP) is distinguished by its intimacy and methodology. During each visit to the Cooley, public school students participate in an inquiry-based discussion concerning diverse aspects of the exhibition—including curatorial practice and exhibition design. Students are encouraged to ask questions and support their opinions with evidence through interpretation of the art. Our pedagogical model is the Reed College Humanities seminar. We are continually impressed by young people's desire to discuss art in an open, yet formal, manner, and we are confident that this model does much more than teach students art history, it teaches even the youngest students what it means to organize ideas based on observation. Over the past four years, MacNaughton and Reed student educators have engaged public school students in the work of artists such as: Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Hans Haacke, Jacob Lawrence, and Pirkle Jones; or on topics such as African American art history, Iraqi art history, and contemporary conceptual art and methodologies.

To enrich the educational experience of Reed students, each year Snyder and MacNaughton select and train a group of Reed students to function as OGP educators. These Reed student docents are mentored in the teaching of art and art history to children and young adults. Preceding most visits to the gallery, Reed student educators visit public school students in their classrooms. The Reed educators familiarize students with the current exhibition through conversation and a slide presentation. Educators and students also become familiar with one another, which greatly enhances the experience in the gallery.

Though Portland has a number of arts organizations that offer educational services, there is no other organization with the educational resources to offer students such in-depth and flexible experiences with original works of art. The Open Gallery Program provides a service that extends educational experience, rather than providing a one-time field trip that may be of limited educational value.

In April 2008, the Cooley conducted a qualitative assessment with participating teachers. Approximately thirty teachers answered detailed questions about their experiences with the OGP. We received very positive feedback, such as:

This kind of experience is so important for all students. To see real art that deals with real issues that they can relate to is the kind of teaching that sinks in and lasts. Even though we saw the pictures before coming, they were nothing in comparison with being in the room, right there, next to the art and learning about the artists.
— PPS 5th grade teacher