Meet Barbara & Ed Brody - Making the World a Better Place Is Important to Capital Campaign Chairs

Barbara and Ed Brody have been involved with strengthening Baltimore communities and schools for their entire adult lives.

In the early 1990s, for instance, they created a support group for parents of service members in the Persian Gulf War—two of the Baltimore couple’s three sons served in the gulf during the war. Jesse J. Harris, then a professor and soon to be the dean of the School of Social Work, was told about the group, and he and other faculty members lent their support. Harris had a military career as a social worker and substantial expertise with military families.

“We got to know Jesse,” Ed Brody says, “and we became friends.”

So began the Brodys’ long affiliation with the School of Social Work—Barbara Brody as an adjunct clinical instructor (she had been a social worker for Baltimore public schools), and Ed Brody as chair of the School of Social Work’s Board of Advisors (he had earlier been vice chair of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners). In 2003, Ed received the Dean’s Medal from the School of Social Work Baltimore Foundation, Inc.’s Board of Trustees, chairs the Lyric Opera House’s board of directors, and is vice chair of MedStar Health, a nonprofit community-based health care organization. Barbara is an advisory board member for the House of Ruth and the Keswick Multi-Care Center. They have both assisted in the development of the SEED School of Maryland for disadvantaged students, due to open this fall.

The Brodys say they were happy to take on the task of being capital campaign chairs for the School of Social Work.

“The School, with its innovative dean, a strong faculty, and perhaps most importantly, students who care deeply about the mission of social work, is an institution well worth the time and effort,” Barbara says.

“The students want to make this a better world,” she adds. “They are very devoted to that cause.”

The same is certainly true of the Brodys.

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