William J. Moody, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, was born on December 27, 1931, in Duluth, Minnesota. He married Regina Blackburn Moody and had a blended family of three children, John, Linda, and Loren, and four grandchildren. Dr. Moody received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota at Duluth, a Master of Music from Butler University, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Moody was band and choral director at Rossville, Indiana, from 1953-56; band director at Duluth Central High School from 1957-61; Director of Bands at the University of Southern Mississippi from 1961-66; and Director of Bands from 1966-1973 and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Music from 1970-1973 at The University of Texas at Austin. He was an intern and fellow in the American Council on Education Academic Administration Internship Program in 1969-70. He is a past president of the National Band Association and the current Secretary-Treasurer of The American Bandmasters Association. Since 1995, he has served as editor of the Journal of Band Research.

Dr. Moody came to the University of South Carolina as Head of the Music Department in 1973, a position he held until 1990 when he returned to full time teaching. Throughout his tenure as an administrator, he added quality faculty, increasing its number from 20 to 41 and graduate assistantships from 18 to 48. Several new degree programs were added including a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Music Education. The University Bands were brought back into the Department of Music and a separate Music Library was maintained, apart from the centralized USC library. It was through his efforts that the Department of Music became a School of Music, eventually headed by a Dean who reports directly to the Provost. It was also through his efforts that the University adopted a policy to allow out-of-state scholarship students to pay in-state tuition; and it was at his instigation that university officials secured tuition waivers from the legislature, a substantial number of which go to the School of Music. He secured funding for the USC String Project which has vitalized string instruction in the public schools and which has become a model for similar projects at other institutions. He encouraged expansion of the pedagogy program through which Columbia area students study privately with talented USC music students. He established the journal, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, which subsequently became a publication of the Music Educators National Conference. The music school added several buildings on campus as it grew in size and the Koger Center for the Arts was built. Through his efforts, the new building that Music now enjoys stayed number one on the list for new construction. Creation of "Carolina Alive" and the annual "Holiday Music Festival" (which continued for 25 years) were part of his first year efforts to broaden the base of service to the state. For 17 years, he was the producer and conductor of the "Columbia Lyric Opera," a joint effort of the School of Music and the Columbia Music Festival Association. He originated and led an "Artistic Intelligences Conference," a national symposium held in 1989 to celebrate USC's "Year of the Arts," and he edited a book entitled Artistic Intelligences, Implications for Education, published by Teachers College Press.

Dr. Moody retired in 2003.