G
lobal learning is increasingly important for
a well-rounded and forward-looking legal
education, and Loyola’s School of Law has
stayed ahead of the curve in offering
meaningful international perspectives and experiences.
As the world changes—facing new economic
challenges, transnational conflicts, and shifting political
regimes—Loyola’s international program changes with
it, adapting international offerings to meet evolving
student needs. The School of Law continues to make
international education and experiences available
to students through our top-notch study-abroad
programs, field studies, international competitions, and
globally focused faculty, all targeted to ready students
for practice in tomorrow’s international legal arena.
Loyola updates
international
studies in response
to global shifts
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Loyola’s School of Law
has stayed ahead of the
curve in offering meaningful
international perspectives
and experiences.
Study-abroad programs
expand, evolve
A significant portion of Loyola law students,
approximately 20 percent, have been exposed
to international law through Loyola’s programs
abroad. The 31 years of summer offerings have been
Loyola’s anchor in international law.
As the economy and job market dictate,
slightly fewer students today are able to take
advantage of the Loyola Summer Abroad Law
programs, often opting instead to take on summer
jobs. Students who are able to participate in
four-, six-, or 10-week summer programs find
the experience well worth the cost. The School
of Law works hard not only to ensure that study-
abroad participants have a top-quality classroom
grounding in international and comparative law,
but also to open as many doors as possible to high-
profile legal leaders and judicial venues. As a result,
students have firsthand experience and face time
with legal heavyweights they’d never be able to
meet in Chicago or traveling on their own.
The School of Law’s summer program at the
John Felice Rome Center—the school’s first study-
abroad program, created by Professors Thomas
Haney and Anne-Marie Rhodes—will be offered for
the 31st time this summer. The past two decades
of the program have been directed and expanded
by Assistant Dean of Students Jean Gaspardo. At
the Rome Center and in other summer programs
she has directed, Gaspardo has traveled abroad
for more than 20 summers, helping to give an
astounding 1,700 students a firsthand experience in
international legal systems.
The longevity of the Rome program has
resulted in significant relationships between
Loyolans and representatives of Rome’s legal
community. From the program’s earliest days, the
late John Felice, first director of the center, brought
his wide web of contacts to bear. “He introduced us
to influential Italian attorneys who would come in
to lecture or take our students out for tours of legal
institutions,” says Haney. “That opened a lot of doors
and made the program much more meaningful
than just classroom learning about these people
and organizations would be.”
Today, the law school’s Roman connections are
long-standing and unique. Every year, for instance,
Loyola students get a deluxe tour of the office of
the avvocato generale (attorney general) of Italy. In
a 15th-century fresco-decorated palazzo, six senior
staff attorneys speak about their work and take
questions, then bring the assembled Loyolans to a
rooftop deck for a private reception overlooking the
Pantheon and all of ancient Rome.
Besides opening access to key thinkers
within the Italian legal system, the program’s
location in Rome makes it attractive to high-profile
guest speakers from the United States. Students
in two recent summer Rome programs were
fortunate to have U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia as guest
lecturers and faculty.
About half of Rome program attendees go
on for an optional week-long field study on the
courts of Europe. In Strasbourg, they visit the
European Court of Human Rights and the European
Parliament of the European Union (EU). Side trips to
Luxembourg and The Hague allow students to also
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Learning in a changing world
SPRING 2013
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LOYOLA LAW
