Rome Study Abroad Program

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Faculty

Diane Penneys Edelman

Diane Edelman is Assistant Dean for Legal Writing and Director of International Studies Programs at Villanova, where she directed and taught in Villanova’s summer program in Montréal in 2004 and 2005. Dean Edelman has developed and taught a variety of advocacy courses - including a unique international advocacy course for first-year students - at Villanova for 14 years, and has designed and taught skills training courses for lawyers and law students from around the world on many occasions. She speaks and writes frequently on topics relating to the intersection of skills training and international law. Dean Edelman received her undergraduate degree at Princeton University and law degree from Brooklyn Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law. She clerked for the Honorable I. Leo Glasser of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and was a litigator at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York and at Hoyle, Morris & Kerr in Philadelphia before coming to Villanova.  Dean Edelman previously served as a member of the Board of Directors of Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and currently supervises student externs at that organization.  Dean Edelman also oversees all aspects of Villanova’s required first-year Legal Writing Program.

Michele R. Pistone

Michele Pistone received her B.S. cum laude New York University, her J.D. cum laude from St. John's University School of Law, and her LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center. At St. John's, she was a member of the St. John's Law Review. After law school, Professor Pistone practiced law in New York City and Washington, D.C., and served as Legal Director of Human Rights First in Washington, D.C., and a teaching fellow in the asylum clinic (Center for Applied Legal Studies) at Georgetown University Law Center.  In 2006, Professor Pistone was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Malta.  Professor Pistone serves on the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights’ International Advisory Board and is co-chair of the ABA Clinical and Skills Committee. Professor Pistone's research and teaching interests focus on asylum and refugee law, immigration law, migration, clinical education, and Catholic social thought.

Mark A. Sargent

Mark A. Sargent has been the Dean and Professor of Law at Villanova since 1997.  He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University, and then was awarded a Danforth Fellowship for graduate study and earned an M.A. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University, and a J.D. in 1978. Dean Sargent practiced corporate and securities law with the Boston law firm of Csaplar & Bok before going on to become Piper & Marbury Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Law & Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Maryland School of Law.  Dean Sargent has taught a wide variety of courses in the areas of securities regulation, business associations, mergers & acquisitions, corporate and white collar crime and related topics, at Villanova, Maryland and other law schools throughout the country.  He is actively involved in numerous community, business, and university organizations, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Villanova Journal of Law and Investment Management, a peer-reviewed journal that he founded in 1997. His current research and teaching interests are principally in the area of Catholic Social Thought and the law.

Virgil O. Wiebe

Virgil O. Wiebe is Director of Clinical Education and Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas. He received an Honors B.A. from Kansas State University, and as a Rhodes Scholar, received an M. Phil. in Latin American Studies from Oxford University. He earned a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Snow Public Interest Scholar, an International Law Fellow, and an editor of the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics. He received his LL.M. from Georgetown University School of Law. Professor Wiebe clerked for the Honorable James C. Francis, IV, a federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York. He also served as Director of Immigration Services and Supervising Attorney for Interfaith Community Services in New York City, and has taught in the immigration law clinics at Georgetown, University of Maryland School of Law, and St. Thomas.  At St. Thomas, he supervises the Immigration Law Practice Group and oversees the Law School’s clinical program. Professor Wiebe has also written extensively on International Humanitarian Law as it relates to the regulation of cluster munitions, and has attended numerous UN conferences on landmines and cluster munitions.

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