U S D M AG A Z I N E
A R O U N D T H E PA R K A R O U N D T H E PA R K A R O U N D T H E PA R K A R O U N D T H E PA R K A R O U N D T H E PA R K
AROUND THE PARK 6
[peacework]
ON A GLOBAL SCALE
T h e e p i c j o u r n e y o f t h e u n i v e r s i t y ’s f o u n d i n g dean of Peace Studies is only just beginning by Julene Snyder o properly trace the life path of Father Bill Headley, C.S.Sp., Ph.D., it would be best to have a globe at hand. The wide-ranging career of the founding dean of USD’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies has led him to work in more than 80 countries toward peace and justice, always seeking collaboration and practical solutions to complicated
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issues. It’s been a journey with a decidedly circuitous route. Born in Philadelphia, Headley felt called to the priesthood as a high school seminarian; after ordination, he hoped to be assigned to Africa. “But I ended up in a parish in Charleston, South Carolina,” he recalls. “It was 1964, an important moment in the desegregation era. Charleston is,
of course, in the deep South, and the city had great racial tension. It was early in my priesthood, and the justice work in Charleston was formative.” After earning a number of graduate degrees — including a pair of master’s degrees in counseling and sociology and a doctorate from New York University in sociology — Headley again yearned to