Images of various speakers who are available on the Masterclass streaming service.
@MASTERCLASS / YOUTUBE
Isaiah Rosario, Senior Writer
Due to a large grant from Masterclass and a partnership with the James Patterson Honors program, students and employees received a year’s membership in the Masterclass streaming platform. The membership expires on Jan. 30, 2026.
Masterclass is a streaming service that gives students and faculty members access to video lessons from some of the biggest names across multiple industries. Some categories include acting and performing arts, business, music, health and wellness, writing and more.
Associate Provost Bridget Chalk mentioned that after the announcement of the James Patterson Honors Program at Manhattan University, Masterclass reached out to Patterson about its desire to honor MU with a grant, as Patterson was one of the founding talents at the company. His creative writing course is known as one of their signature products.
In a statement to the Associated Press, Patterson spoke about his goals for the new honors program and what he sees this program doing in the future.
“Our goal in this leadership program is to provide a solid foundation in the critical areas of writing and creative problem solving coupled with a robust professional preparation and exposure to leaders in a wide range of work environments,” Patterson said.
Chalk believes that this grant aligns greatly with the university’s mission as Masterclass courses are aimed to facilitate a spirit of lifelong learning.
“To take a master class course, you don’t need to be enrolled necessarily in a program here or anywhere,” Chalk said. “You can be a high school student, you can be a retiree, or anywhere in between, and you can learn through masterclass … I think that the desire to be a life model learner is something we seek to instill in our students at Manhattan College [University] as part of our mission and I think Masterclass as a concept is aligned with that.”
Chalk also discussed how she believes these goals and objectives align with the James Patterson Honors program, specifically, the speaker series the program will offer.
“One of the signature elements of this program is going to be a speaker series with the same sorts of elite leaders across industry and society coming to speak to the students at Manhattan University, not just those in the Honors Program, but all of our whole community,” Chalk said. “In some ways, Masterclass is an extension of that concept. These leaders are coming to further instruct students and the larger community in whatever their career paths have looked like.”
William Walters, executive director at the O’Malley Library was approached about the idea of making Masterclass available on the library webpage. Walters was completely open to the idea as it is an aid for information research. He wanted to make sure that it was available to students in an easy, seamless way.
Walters praised the information technology department for allowing Masterclass to use single sign-on for students. The original idea was for students and faculty to each get an email on how to sign in, which would include a unique link for the specific person. The single sign-on feature to Masterclass could play a tremendous role in making the program more accessible for students and making sure that students are aware of the seminars available.
“We are trying to make sure everyone knows about it,” Walters said. “We’re going to highlight it on the library webpage. We’re gonna put it on our social media. Marketing and Communication have their plans as well for their social media. We’re gonna work together on advertising it in terms of making good use of it. I like it in terms of how students can use it to help in their classes.”
Based on the data that the associate provost’s office will receive in about six months, they can ask Masterclass for an extension. There have been requests made by alumni to be able to have access to Masterclass as well. With this addition of Masterclass, the brand of MU will continue to grow.
“Masterclass has pretty great name recognition, and I think the fact that they’re partnering with us shows that we, too, are growing our brand,” Chalk said. “We have a well-established brand in our region, but Masterclass is not only a nationwide but a worldwide brand. Manhattan University is also looking to expand our footprint and our reach. I think that Masterclass is a way of showing the beginning of that expansion.”