This past summer, Courtney Balban was hired as Academic Support Counselor for the Center of Student Success and Disabilities at Waynesburg University.

Although she got most of her previous working experience on the other side of the Pennsylvania, Balban is a native of Waynesburg, and graduated from Waynesburg Central High School in 2010. When Balban was a student at Waynesburg Central, she didn’t see herself going down her eventual career path.

As a high school student, Bablan described herself as a “math and science person,” and planned to pursue one of those fields. But a few events, mainly the death of her father, Dan Farabee, helped lead her to psychology, which ended up being the foundation of her current job at Waynesburg University.

“When I was 16, I lost my dad to cancer,” said Balban. “I had really good experiences with counseling on my own and watched my family really benefit from healthy, good qualified counselors. So I learned that was something I was passionate about, seeing people get healthy and work through challenging things. So that was kind of a catalyst for the change overall.”

After graduating high school, Balban, who decided to pursue psychology halfway through her senior year, attended the University of Valley Forge, where she graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in counselling psychology. Immediately after graduating, she earned a Master of Arts in clinical mental health counseling from Messiah College.

Bablan’s husband, Isacc, spent almost five years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a pastor. He got a new job in Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, which is what led Balban back to Waynesburg. Bablan shifted from working in an adolescent hospitalization program, as well as coaching volleyball and working as a counselor at Valley Forge, to looking for a job nearby. Having grown up in Waynesburg, Bablan said that being familiar with the university made her comfortable about looking for a position there.

“I was looking at local universities, so of course being from Waynesburg I knew very much that Waynesburg [University] was a great place to start working, and they had an opening,” said Balban.

Brian Carr, director of the Center for Student Success and Disability Services, interviewed Balban for her position, which is new this year. Carr said that Bablan’s presentation, and personality, helped her get the job.

“I would say that [Bablan] is extremely professional,” said Carr. “I would say that she was extremely personable. Just gave off such a positive vibe. She just was a very, very good interview…the words I would use are personable, professional and positive. Those would be the three things that really kind of popped off the page at me.”

A lot of Bablan’s responsibilities involve working with students who are struggling with academics for one reason or another. For Bablan, dealing with kids who are having these issues and trying to help correct them can be taxing.

“Having to walk through difficult decisions or coping with failure with students can be something that’s a little bit draining and a little bit discouraging,” said Bablan. “Wanting to always be an encourager and pick people up, that can be a challenge sometimes.”

Despite the difficulties, Balban loves the one-on-one interactions that come with her job.

“I kind of call myself an energetic introvert,” said Bablan. “I thrive on connection, and so one-on one relationships or small groups of people is something that I really enjoy and I thrive in. So, getting to be one-on-one with students, to hear their stories, to hear how they got where they are, to listen to them tell me what they are walking through in kind of the story God’s writing currently is something I really, really love.”

Along with helping students stay on track, Balban also works with students who have disclosed a disability and assists them in the needed accommodations to succeed in college.

“So sometimes that’s academic, sometimes that’s housing, sometimes that’s dining,” said Balban. “Whatever [people with disabilities] need to be successful here we work with them to figure that out and make that happen.”

Balban said that knowing that adversity is difficult, but rarely impossible to overcome, helps her in working with students in need of assistance.

“It’s kind of gaining some perspective,” said Balban. “There are very few things that are catastrophic or irreversible. Things have consequences, but most things aren’t too big that we can’t fix them. So, we kind of work through reframing and having a positive attitude and focusing on ‘what are we great at, what are we passionate about, and what’s it going to take to get us ultimately to our goal, whether a job or graduation, whatever it is. So, kind of keeping the end [goal] in mind as we move forward.”

While her father was supportive of her original plan for college, Bablan feels that he was somebody who would have been in her corner regardless of what she decided to pursue.

“My dad was definitely someone who communicated ‘Whatever you want to do, I’m going be fully supportive of it.’ So, [pursuing psychology] wasn’t a super hard decision for me. It was definitely about finding what I was great at, what I was passionate about and going full for it,” said Balban. “So, it definitely wasn’t a challenge for me to wrestle with that switch, but it did mean that I had to come to terms with the fact that I had experienced a loss in order to make that switch.”

For Carr, Balban fits perfectly with Waynesburg’s core values.

“It was very apparent that she was consistent with the mission of the university,” said Carr. “Based on her statement of faith and things that she said in the interview, I could tell that she was consistent with the mission of the university. She exemplifies it.”