Chapel Talks

April 2, 2008

Noah Susskind '03 Debunks Myths For Students

Reverend Jim LaMacchia introduced Mr. Susskind to our chapel audience this morning. "Our speaker this morning is Noah Susskind, an alumnus of Saint Mark's School, Class of 2003. During his years at Saint Mark’s, Noah was inducted into the Cum Laude Society and won a Saint Mark's Scholar Prize for averaging at least an A- for his whole tenure at Saint Mark's. He also won the AP Scholar with Distinction Award; a National Merit Scholarship Program Letter of Commendation; the Henry H. Redmond Prize for English Narrative; and the Saint Mark's Scholar-Athlete Prize, together with the Outstanding Contribution to Athletics Award for earning seven varsity letters. He was co-captain of the Varsity Soccer Team, and he also rowed for our crew team, winning the Pollack Scholarship for excelling in leadership, athleticism, and team spirit and for helping his boat and his team win the New England Championship. He was a day-student Prefect and, later, a Monitor. He founded the snowboarding club; he was lead guitarist in the school's jazz band and its only student rock-band. His service to the school as a writing tutor sparked an interest in volunteer work that he would later undertake at soup kitchens in Boston. Last June, Noah graduated from Williams College with Honors, majoring in philosophy, with a concentration in legal studies. He did thesis-equivalent research on the philosophy of disputes. At Williams, he won annual school-wide prizes for his writing in both political science and English. Williams College appointed him to serve as a Co-Head of the college’s Writing-Tutors Program. Noah studied dispute resolution abroad in California and Morocco. He won internship grants to study public opinion in New York, and to intern for National Public Radio at its Boston station W-B-U-R. On the Williams campus, he held jobs as a snowboard instructor, cook, DJ, an op-ed contributor to the student newspaper, and counselor for victims of rape and sexual assault. Since his graduation from Williams, Noah has pursued a career in dispute resolution, holding internships at the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School, and a mediation firm in San Francisco. Last summer, he worked in the American southwest, helping the joint MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program establish a course of study for Master degree and law students to do applied work helping the Navajo Native Americans resolve disputes over natural resource management. His first scholarly article will be published in the next issue of the Harvard Law School's Negotiation Journal, which just hired him as a freelance writer. He is also busy studying for the law-school entrance-exams, and training to practice mediation in small-claims court. This summer, he will begin working to help Katrina victims negotiate with the Federal government for their fair share of the relief fund that has been set aside for them. Please welcome Noah Susskind back to Saint Mark’s this morning."