Lafayette Hill Resident Receives the Stephen N. Berk, Ph.D. Memorial Award at Chestnut Hill College

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Jason Berk, M.D. (right) with Dr. Edmund Tedd Riccio (Left) winner of the Stephen. N. Berk Memorial Award that was awarded at Commencement exercises on May 12, 2012 at Chestnut Hill College.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (05/30/2012)(readMedia)-- Dr. Edmund Tedd Riccio, a recent graduate in the Department of Professional Psychology from Lafayette Hill, Pa. received the Stephen N. Berk, Ph.D. Memorial Award at Commencement exercises. Jason Berk, M.D., Stephen's son, presented the award.

The award is in memory of Dr. Steven Berk, Ph.D., ABN, assistant professor of psychology at the College, who passed away in early 2012 after a brief but courageous fight with cancer. Dr. Berk, who specialized in neuropsychology, was a past president of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and the Philadelphia Society for Clinical Psychologists, and a representative to the American Psychological Association. To honor Dr. Berk's lifelong work as a clinician and mentor, the Chestnut Hill College community established an endowment fund to support the award.

The award will be given annually to a graduate in the doctoral program in the Department of Professional Psychology who embodied the characteristics of Dr. Berk: bright and clinically talented, collaborative and engaging, flexible, easy-going and has a sense of humor. Chosen from a list of accomplished graduates, Dr. Riccio was selected for his hard work in attaining a doctorate in clinical psychology, and for his personality characteristics that resemble those of Dr. Berk. One faculty member stated, "As a student and cohort member, Tedd was consistently kind, supportive, empathic, flexible, and intuitive. He has a wonderful, dry sense of humor, which includes an ability to be self-effacing in an appropriate and funny way. He was the perfect choice for the first award in honor of our dear friend and colleague."

About Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College, a four-year coed Catholic college in the Ignatian tradition, offers a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master's and doctoral programs. The College has been rated by US News & World Report as among the best master's universities in the North, as among the best Northeastern colleges by The Princeton Review, and has been classified as selective by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Since its inception, the College has offered a rigorous curriculum that provides students with a broad background in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The goal of Chestnut Hill College has been to prepare students for life's challenges by helping them to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.