Adventure for assistant dean

Assistant Dean Melissa Balaban will step down from her post in January to embark on a six-month, round-the-world journey of volunteerism and tourism.

Assist. Dean Melissa Balaban

Since joining the law school in 2003, Balaban – a 1991 graduate of USC Law – has overseen the Career Services Office. She also has managed the internship and externship programs for academic credit. She will stay in her position through the end of the fall semester.

Balaban will travel with her husband and two daughters, ages 9 and 13, with stays in Africa, Southeast Asia and Israel. Having been a public interest lawyer, Balaban knows the benefits of volunteerism and wants her daughters to experience them first-hand.

“There are a lot of volunteer activities you can do with lawyering skills, but we wanted to find something we could do with our kids,” Balaban said.

Through the international volunteer organization Cross-Cultural Solutions, the four will first spend a month working in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania, after going on safari. Their placement as volunteers there isn’t settled yet, but they most likely will care for infants and children, Balaban said.

Their next stop is Trang, Thailand, where they will again be placed as needed by their volunteer group. Following an excursion around Southeast Asia with possible stops in Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma and Bali, the family will spend May and June 2007 in Israel, spending some of that time volunteering on a kibbutz. An agriculture-based collective community, a kibbutz uses volunteers for anything from harvesting crops to washing dishes.

Balaban said that the adventure will include home-schooling their daughters, which will focus on learning about the places and cultures they are visiting. The girls’ enthusiasm for the trip wavers, she said, but she feels the timing is right, as the eldest will start high school next fall.

“Part of the motivation is to have them see what the rest of the world looks like, and teach them things they maybe wouldn’t learn otherwise,” Balaban said.

In a message to the student body distributed Oct. 31, Balaban said she wanted to make it known that she was not leaving USC Law for another job.

“I truly love working at the law school and being a part of this great community and tradition,” Balaban wrote. “I will always be extremely grateful for the opportunity to work at this great law school—particularly with the remarkable student body. There is no doubt that I will continue to be involved with the law school as an active graduate when I return.”

A search for a new assistant dean for career services is under way. In addition, Associate Dean Rob Saltzman will oversee career services starting next semester, when he will become dean of students. He will also head student affairs and the registrar.

Dean Balaban has had a far-reaching legal career as an employment discrimination lawyer in a private firm, directing attorney of Public Counsel’s Child Care Law Project, an adjunct law professor and a consultant to a national employment consulting firm.