Museums have a reputation of being a bit of a snooze fest, often repelling youth. Instead of boring Greek statues blankly posing in a cold and quiet room, young adults would likely prefer to spend their time elsewhere. San Antonio’s Museum of Art decided to take down the barriers of a boring facade and instead created a night to remember by allowing university students to interact with the museum in a new way.
Students from UT San Antonio, Trinity University, San Antonio College and other local institutions filled the four-story museum. Free admission was provided exclusively to all San Antonio university students who brought their current college ID. The March 26 event was a huge success with a bustling drove of university students enjoying the exhibits and activities spanning beyond the museum hours from 6-8 p.m.
A DJ controlled a turntable with modern pop hits. Iconic beats filled the museum, creating a Saturday-night-dance-club atmosphere. Abundant in groups, students were not just visiting SAMA but collaborating with the participation based museum visit.
Students designed buttons, made colorful prints and took part in themed tours around the museum. Attendees could even use a print machine to make a commemorative poster with the slogan “College Night at SAMA!” After collecting a souvenir print commemorating the night, attendees could design their own button-shaped pin at the next door over.
Paper cutouts of various artworks from SAMA’s 14 offered eclectic backgrounds for the button design workshop. A variety of designed stickers provide the opportunity to personalize each participant’s button to their liking.
Three types of tours were available: “When Gods Get Humbled,” “The Swifties Guide to SAMA” and “Bricks and Beer.” SAMA’s docent Felicia Esparza, who is a Taylor Swift super fan, hosted the Swiftie tours to entice young adults who like Swift and art museums.
Participants took part in a tour full of foreshadowing spanning Swift’s career as a pop star and art dating back centuries. Swift’s career connected to Sarah Cain’s “love seat” art installation; a mixture of colorful acrylic paint expressively placed on a canvas seeped into the found object of a love seat. Esparza paralleled the work to Swift’s evolutionary theme of love to heartbreak.
When explaining why she hosted Swiftie tours, Esparza explained how it was her way of inviting younger people to connect with art from a new approach.
“If [the event] is under the guise of a Taylor Swift tour, we can talk about Sarah Cain and other artists in a way that’s approachable for anyone to interact with art to help get people in the rooms of museums,” Esparza emphasized. “I am so impressed by how many people — I’ve never seen this many people here, and I love seeing young people at the museum. I think it’s really important for people to be here even if they are not engaged in the tour, but being surrounded by artwork can be really inspiring.”
To end the night on a high note, food trucks parked outside for attendees to enjoy some food rounding out their visit at SAMA with their friends. SAMA’s first college night will not be the last, as museum staff expressed it may be an annual event. For those looking to explore more of the institution, a watercolor lotería workshop will be hosted on April 7 at the Great Hall in SAMA at 5 p.m.
Scott Miller • Apr 13, 2026 at 9:51 pm
The SAMA is truly a wonderland. Just one facet of SAMA — the permanent SAMA exhibit featuring Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, by itself, is absolutely fascinating and if you just spend your whole visit in that particular wing of the museum — you’ll be awed and fascinated.
I won’t go into specifics – that would require pages and pages to describe the wonderful things I saw there. Suffice it to say that the visit, which is required for Dr. Jessica Nowlin’s course on Ancient Egypt, was for me a joy. I was forced to end my two-and-a-half hour visit because the museum was closing for the evening. Time seemed to pass so quickly. I went back a couple of days later and spent another three hours poring over the beautiful sculptures, mummy cofffins, Roman mosaics, Greek vases, and the stunning collection of ancient Greek and Roman coins (to include Ptolemaic Egypt).
Roadrunners . . . .the absolute BEST news is that admission is free with your valid student ID. And there’s lots more to the museum than exhibits from the ancient world . . . .There’s the vast collection of paintings and artworks in the other wings of the museum . . .