Fables and the Art of Leadership Applying the Wisdom of Mister Rogers to
UC Berkeley alumni Ian and Donna Mitroff met at Tolman Hall 56 years ago; Tolman is being torn downwards this year. (UC Berkeley photo by Megan Lee)
It's not clear if Fred Rogers ever used the phrase "pay it forward" during any of the 912 episodes of his Mister Rogers Neighborhood TV show.
What is clear from listening to what Rogers preached to young children over the course of more than than three decades is that sharing your largesse with others was nearly the tiptop of his listing.
Two of his most ardent acolytes are UC Berkeley alumni Donna and Ian Mitroff, who fell in love on campus in 1963 every bit students and went on to befriend Rogers and to travel the world.
The couple, jubilant their 55th wedding ceremony this yr, say they feel "a swell dedication" to Berkeley. So, they share their generosity through the Ian and Donna Mitroff Scholarship, which goes to a student whose academic interests are a combination of their own — technology and the social sciences.
Alex Krentsel, a senior in electrical engineering and figurer scientific discipline who is pursuing a simultaneous caste in music and plays for the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, is the current recipient of the endowed scholarship. More than than that, he's formed a bond with Donna, 79, and Ian, 80.
"I've had scholarships before, but this was the first fourth dimension I'd ever had a chance to interact with the donor," Krentsel says. "I've had lunch and dinner with them, and they've come to one of my concerts. What's clear to me is that they are at the point in their lives where they want to give back. And they want to show me how information technology'south done. They've introduced me to a lot of wonderful people I wouldn't have met otherwise."
Ian and Donna Mitroff have founded a scholarship every bit a way of saying thanks to UC Berkeley. (UC Berkeley video by John Hickey)
Krentsel will never take a class in Tolman Hall on the northwest corner of the campus. It'southward seismically scarce, too plush to renovate and is slowly being demolished. Merely it'due south at present part of his story, because without Tolman, the Mitroffs would never have met 56 years ago, and the scholarship would never have come into being.
Donna and Ian met every bit students exterior Tolman Hall, the longtime dwelling house of the Section of Psychology and the Graduate School of Education.
But at first, Donna wasn't sure Ian was a catch. She was leaving Tolman heading south, navigating campus sidewalk repair by following detours cordoned off with tape.
"This is quite an obstacle grade, isn't it?" a immature human said, suddenly beside her. "I took 1 look, and I could tell he was an engineer, because he was wearing a pocket protector," Donna recalls. "I was an English major, and I thought, `Well, that was nice, simply nosotros don't have anything in common.'"
"I did non have a pocket protector. I had a slide rule, in a big slide rule case," Ian says.
To Donna'due south surprise, as they walked forth, Ian began reciting Walt Whitman to her from retention. "By the fourth dimension we got to the middle of campus," she says, "he asked me to stop and get a loving cup of java. I said, `I tin't, because I've got this class. But here'south my phone number.'"
Fred Rogers testifying to Congress in 1969 to make sure PBS funding wasn't cut. (PBS Kids video)
Less than a week afterwards, they had their commencement date. She says she tin't call back the flick they saw, just "I recollect that blueish dress I wore."
Ian says he thinks they saw "A Man For All Seasons," and that'south almost certainly non the example, since the classic Paul Scofield movie didn't come up out until 1966. Simply that movie title sort of fits Ian, who went on to get his Ph.D. in engineering at Berkeley and also spent 3½ years on a small-scale in the philosophy of scientific discipline "considering I had a swell technical education, simply I needed something broader."
After getting his Ph.D., he got a task offer from the University of Pittsburgh. But as Ian and Donna saturday in his car upon his return to California, "I said, `I don't desire to go to Pittsburgh without you,'" says Ian. "And she said, `Are you asking me what I recall you are?' And I said, `Yeah.' And that was my proposal, and nosotros went to Pittsburgh for 13 years."
Donna went on to become a main's degree in special education then a Ph.D. in teaching, both from the University of Pittsburgh. So, it was time to look for a job. One dark, while at a party, a friend mentioned to Donna an opening at Pittsburgh's Public Dissemination Service affiliate, WQED. Donna interviewed and decided she wanted the job. Badly. And she landed information technology.
On her first day at WQED every bit director of educational services, Donna parked in the lot nether the Tv station and got into the elevator. And so did Rogers, whose iconic educational children's series Mister Rogers Neighborhood was based in the same building as WQED.
"I was verklempt," Donna recalls. "Our daughter was about 4, and she was watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and she was singing the songs, and there he stood. And I had the experience that everyone has near how Fred looks y'all right in the optics and asks you questions. And you lot can't aid yourself, you lot have to tell him everything he wants to know.
"And then, by the time we got upwards to the third flooring — it was a tedious elevator — I'd told him all my background and what I was there to exercise at WQED, and he said, 'Why don't yous come by sometime? Maybe we can practise something together.'"
It wasn't far from this spot outside Tolman Hall that Ian and Donna met 56 years ago. (UC Berkeley photo by Megan Lee)
Donna got permission from her dominate to meet with Rogers several times, hashing out ideas that led to a book — Mister Rogers' Plan and Play Book: Activities from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for Parents and Child Intendance Providers — to assist adults further the important lessons Rogers was trying to teach children on his shows.
"I started it," says Donna of the lesson plans. "I'd look at an episode, talk to Fred and design follow-up activities. We started by handing out mimeographed sheets of paper to preschool teachers we knew."
A few years afterwards, Ian was lured back to the West Declension past the University of Southern California (USC), where he became chair in the Marshall Schoolhouse of Business and had a joint date in the Annenberg Schoolhouse for Communication and Journalism. The Los Angeles area was a hotbed of children'south idiot box at the time, and Donna wound up as executive managing director of WQED'southward West Declension part where the mail service-production took place.
Later on 26 years at USC, Ian retired, and in 2006, the 2 moved back to Berkeley, not far from where they'd first met. Their chance coming together at Tolman Hall and their fourth dimension spent with Fred Rogers were never far from their hearts.
In one case back in Berkeley, they would render to Tolman annually and leave a note about their honey story and their love of life in a fake rock, the kind yous'd hibernate a spare key in, outside the building where they get-go met. The note told a bit of their story.
That story is into its sixth decade. The Berkeley alumni hoped someone would catch on. Someone did. First the notation disappeared. Then the rock did. Now Tolman itself is. Their story, notwithstanding, continues..
In 2012, they mined their time with Rogers to co-author a more lasting piece of writing — Fables and the Fine art of Leadership: Applying the Wisdom of Mister Rogers to the Workplace.
"We put together seven of Fred'due south fables," Ian says, "and nosotros used them equally stories in guild to teach work behavior. Information technology resulted in a book of which we are very proud."
And they keep to be proud of Berkeley. Hence, the scholarship.
"Berkeley allowed ii poor kids to go on and take very good careers and get relatively well off and live in the places we have lived and meet the places we've traveled to," Ian says. "Nosotros really desire to give dorsum for all Berkeley has given us."
Source: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/28/a-tolman-love-story-56-years-in-the-making/