Harriet L. Schwartz, PhD, was recently a featured guest on the Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy Podcast in the episode titled “Setting Healthy Boundaries with Students.” In this conversation, Schwartz, author of Connected Teaching, discusses the importance of establishing healthy, flexible boundaries with students. Drawing on Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT). In the conversation, she offers valuable insights and real-life examples of how boundaries and clear communication can foster connection in the student-teacher relationship.
Schwartz is at the forefront of applying RCT to teaching and learning in higher education. Her scholarly interests focus on teaching as relational practice and the role of emotion in teaching. She is the Lead Scholar for Education as Relational Practice at the International Center for Growth in Connection, where she also serves on the leadership team.
Harriet is co-author (with Elizabeth Holloway, PhD) of Essentials of Constructivist Critical Incident Technique (APA, 2025)—the first book to present a constructivist approach to this qualitative method originally developed in the 1950s. She and Holloway are leading efforts to fully articulate this modern interpretation of critical incident technique.
Currently, Schwartz serves as Professor of Relational Practice and Higher Education for Antioch University’s PhD in Leadership and Change program. Before joining Antioch, she taught in leadership, education, counseling, and student affairs programs at Carlow University. Earlier in her career, she worked in student affairs and student support at the University of Hartford, Bard College, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Schwartz is the author of Connected Teaching: Relationship, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education (Routledge, 2019) and has published extensively, including two New Directions for Teaching and Learning sourcebooks (Teaching and Emotion and Interpersonal Boundaries in Teaching and Learning), as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. A frequent keynote speaker and presenter at regional and national conferences, she also enjoys engaging with Connected Teaching faculty book clubs and leading faculty and staff development workshops. As a public scholar, she has written about racism, sexism, and homophobia, with contributions to Pittsburgh’s Public Source, Medium, and other platforms.
