/ Alumni News /
A Family Affair
Passing down a passion for social work BY TY NA N P O W E R
Meg Behr Laird, M.S.W. ’92, and Duncan Laird, M.S.W. ’93, met when Duncan’s stepmother, Ann Hartman, was dean of Smith SSW.
For many SSW alumni, their first glimpse of the School came at a campus tour for prospective students or, even later, at check-in for their first summer. For some, though, SSW has been a part of their lives—and their families’ lives—for almost as long as they can remember. Dean Emerita Ann Hartman was 11 years old the first time she visited
/ 38 /
her mother, Lois Hartman, M.S.S. ’37, at Smith. “I slept on the floor of the dorm,” she recalled. Lois had started working at Family Welfare Society in Rochester, New York, in order to support her children after she and their father separated. Soon, though, she found she needed to return to school. “They were just beginning to require
S M I T H COL L E G E SCHO O L FO R SO CIAL WO RK
graduate work,” said Hartman. “There weren’t very many graduate programs at the time. There was nothing in Rochester.” Lois entered SSW’s 15-month B program and was placed in a field internship in Chicago—creating a challenge for a single mother that SSW would avoid today. In Chicago, Lois lived at Hull House and interned at the Institute for Juvenile Research. Meanwhile, Ann and her sister, Betty, stayed in Rochester with a young couple who cared for them. Years later, Ann Hartman followed in her mother’s footsteps, returning to SSW as a B program student. With her Smith M.S.S. in hand, she moved to New York, obtained a D.S.W. from Columbia University—and fell in love with Joan Laird, a single mother with an adorable 16-month-old son, Duncan. The trio settled down together, eventually moving to Michigan. Then, in 1986, Hartman returned to Smith with her family to serve as dean of the School for Social Work. Laird taught at SSW as well, and her family therapy course led to the growth of their own family. After Duncan returned to the family home to recover from an illness and consider his own future plans, he met—and eventually married—one of his mother’s students, Meg Behr Laird, M.S.W. ’92, who was about to embark on a field internship at Duke University in North Carolina. Meg also came from a family of social workers that included her mother, Louise Frieder Behr; brother William Behr, M.S.W. ’76; and sister, Sarah Behr Moaba, M.S.W. ’83. Although Duncan wrestled with possible career options, the path was clear to Meg. “Social work is just what we do,” she said.
