Penn State Behrend Alumna Honored with University-wide Achievement Award
Dr. Lacresha L. Hall, a 1995 alumna of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, was a recipient of the 2009 Penn State Alumni Achievement Award presented by the University’s Alumni Association. Hall is founder and chief executive officer of Hallway of Life Recovery Center, a sober living environment for women in Delray Beach, Fla. She also has a private psychiatric practice, DeAnima Psychiatric Services.
Hall is the first Penn State Behrend graduate to earn this University-wide award. She was honored in a private evening ceremony on April 2, at Penn State Behrend. Throughout the day, Hall spoke to two classes, PSYCH 484 Work Attitudes and Motivation, taught by Jennifer Trich Kremer, lecturer in psychology, and BIOL 430 Developmental Biology, taught by Dr. James Warren, associate professor of biology. Hall also met with the college’s Scrubs Club, a student organization for students enrolled in nursing or pre-health degree programs.
Established in 2005, the Alumni Achievement Award recognizes Penn State alumni 35 years of age and younger for their extraordinary accomplishments. These prominent young alumni are nominated by an academic college and invited by the President of the University to return to campus to share their expertise with students, faculty and administrators. They demonstrate to students that Penn State alumni succeed in exceptional fashion at an early age.
Hallway of Life Recovery Center works to teach women independence and the life skills needed to live a healthy and productive sober life on their own. The Christian-based, transitional living facility is for women only in order to better address specific gender-based issues of addiction and exploitation as well as to fill a need for women-only facilities.
After graduating from Penn State Behrend in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, Hall went on to receive her medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 1999. She did her residency in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, and completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at the University of California Davis Medical Center.
Hall is board-certified in childhood and adolescence, adult, and forensic psychiatry. She is a member of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, American Psychiatric Association, Black Psychiatrists of America, American Society of Addiction Medicine, and Florida Psychiatric Society.
Hall was one of seven Penn State alumni presented with the 2009 Alumni Achievement Award. Each were honored in a ceremony on April 3, at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus. The Alumni Achievement Award is a cast bronze medallion and framed certificate.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 34 bachelor’s, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,600 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams and 19 intramural sports. Penn State Behrend is named in recognition of a donation by Mary Behrend, widow of Ernst Behrend, who founded the Hammermill Paper Co. in Erie in 1898. The Behrend family lived on the 400-acre Glenhill Farm, which is the core of the Penn State Behrend campus today. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.