Once a month, a small group gathers for a conversation that is both simple and yet surprisingly serious: what it means to live by the lessons of Fred Rogers.
Angie Hansen, chair of the Department of English, and English professor Jesse Egbert started the Fredliness Group, which meets on the first Friday of the month, to share their love of Mister Rogers’ philosophies with others.
“It all started because Angie and I both love Fred Rogers,” Egbert said. “We would share quotes through email to try to brighten each other’s day, and we got talking about how more people could benefit from his philosophy. We decided to start a group where we could get together and talk about his teachings and about feeling good but also taking his philosophy on life and relationships seriously.”
The group, which has been meeting since last year, includes undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and administrators from a variety of departments. The meetings are open to anyone in the community who shares the group’s interest in the ideas popularized by Rogers—kindness, emotional honesty, patience and the belief that every person deserves to be treated with dignity.
“We were thinking about students’ mental health and how we all need to give more time and attention to values and not only content,” Hansen said. “We started thinking about how we can take Fred Rogers’ lens and apply it to the content that we teach. It has been very grassroots.”
Discussion often begins with a quote or a clip from Rogers, and from there, the conversation expands. They talk about how Rogers’ values apply to everyday life, how to respond to conflict, how to listen without judgment and how small acts of care and kindness can keep communities knitted together.
“A lot of Fred Rogers’ philosophy focuses on how we see ourselves and, by extension, how we treat each other,” Egbert said. “He rarely talks about how we should be behaving toward one another but focuses instead on how we should value ourselves and that is sort of the foundation of everything.”
Egbert said that although some participants are quiet when they first come, they share their personal experiences once they feel more comfortable.
“There is no pressure to participate,” he said. “Some people come because they loved Fred Rogers’ show growing up. Others have never heard of him and go because they were invited or are curious. However, the number of people who keep coming back is a good sign for us.”
For Hansen, the hour a month the group spends together serves as a reminder of the importance of slowing down and being present.
“We are going from class to class, to midterms to other duties,” Hansen said. “This hour we spend together has no agenda or expectations and that might be uncomfortable for a minute, but I think that is why people like it and come back. We don’t have to get something done, we just think about who we are and what we value in each other and in ourselves, our shared humanity.”
To Hansen, Egbert and other attendees, these meetings are more than a nostalgic reflection on a familiar figure in a cardigan. They’re a chance to promote emotional validation, empathy, kindness, self-worth and acceptance in a world full of bitter division.
The Fredliness Group gets together the first Friday of every month at 10 a.m. in the Liberal Arts building (Bldg. 18), room 110. Everyone is welcome.
Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu