Samantha N. Smith

Teaching

Spring 2025, Spring 2026

Harnessing Employee Talent: The Diversity Advantage (HET)

Most organizations talk about diversity. Few make it work. I designed HET to close this gap by revealing why smart people make biased decisions and well-intentioned diversity initiatives fail. More importantly, this course teaches students to build systems where inclusive behavior becomes a default choice, not an act of individual goodwill. 

HET progresses through three modules:

1. Hiring Diverse Talent
2. Retaining Diverse Talent
3. Harnessing Diverse Talent

Drawing on behavioral economics, psychology, and organizational theory, HR professionals learn to redesign the infrastructure that shapes talent decisions—from the language in job postings to the criteria in promotion decisions. For the final paper, students identify where inclusion breaks down in their organizations, design evidence-backed solutions, and create a plan to measure impact, connecting diversity directly back to business outcomes. Successful students should feel empowered to navigate complexity with both analytical rigor and appreciation for the human in human capital.
Course Details
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"I received more than I wanted as I now feel well equipped to implement some changes in our organization, which not many classes leave you with this feeling."

"All of the supplemental readings have been fascinating to me and applicable to my current job."

"This is a fantastic class—engaging, timely, comprehensive, thought–provoking. Prof Smith is smart, well-researched, very engaged in her subject matter, and great at welcoming open debate. The workload is not overwhelming and the readings are timely and carefully chosen. She provides copious written feedback on assignments and includes discussion board posts in her lectures. This is one of the true highlights of my HES coursework."

"This course has been so enlightening and a beacon of sorts for how to continue forward, driving these changes regardless of the environment that surrounds them."

"This course provides a deep dive into the history and current state of how organizations harness employee talents, providing frameworks and research validated examples to create greater engagement and productivity. The academic effort required is HES appropriate, however this course offers the additional benefit of internal growth and emotional intelligence development through topic and discussion engagement. Prior training or education is always helpful for direct application, but what you'll learn in this course is not taught elsewhere. It's a unique and powerful deep dive into a very important topic."

"This class has inspired me to proactively integrate inclusive practices into our firm's strategies. For example, I plan to restructure interviews to reduce bias in hiring and actively seek input from diverse groups within decision-making processes."

"I loved learning about choice architecture... Everyone on my team now knows about choice architecture and ways that they can implement it into consulting conversations because I have told them about it approximately 500 times!!!"

"Week after week I find myself thinking back on the lecture and finding real time examples of what has been discussed in my work life. Of all the classes I've taken in my HES journey to date, this one has been the most timely and most related to current topics in the cultural zeitgeist."

Spring 2025

HET Course Overview

Course Evaluations (73% response rate):

• Led discussions effectively: 4.9/5.0 (Extension School mean: 4.7)
• Course materials effectiveness: 4.8/5.0 (Extension School mean: 4.6)
• Feedback quality: 4.7/5.0 (Extension School mean: 4.4)
• Overall instructor rating: 4.7/5.0 (Extension School mean: 4.6)

Course Structure:

• Duration: 15-week curriculum
• Enrollment: 26 HR leaders
• Select Topics: Choice Architecture in Hiring, Algorithmic Bias, Systemic Fairness

Fall 2024

Building Trusted Organizations (BTO)

As Teaching Fellow for Professor Sandra J. Sucher's MBA elective on trust and organizational resilience, I gained training in the case method through weekly lecture preparation and teaching debriefs. Beyond supporting students with individualized feedback on trust frameworks, Professor Sucher and I co-authored an HBS case examining Boeing's organizational failures through the lens of trust erosion.
Course DetailsHBS Case

Teaching Pedagogy

My teaching approach draws on more than a decade of experience—from leading tutor trainings at Princeton's McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning and designing curricula in Chiang Mai to teaching executives at Harvard. Through these diverse contexts, I have learned that breakthrough learning happens when we surface and test students' assumptions while preserving psychological safety. I design for "high challenge, high support," so students fully engage with how evidence and theory relate to their own lives.

I run my classroom as a lab. We work with messy, real-world dilemmas, discussing cases without clean answers where choices must account for time pressures, various stakeholders, and firm values. Through case discussions, role-play activities, and structured debates, I help leaders think in frameworks rather than formulas, to empower them to lead when there is no playbook. Whether teaching undergraduates, MBAs, or senior executives, my goal is the same: equip students to make thoughtful, evidence-based, context-aware decisions with both rigor and empathy.
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"Very engaging, knowledgeable and responsive. Impressive as a professional and an exceptional human! Strong facilitation skills. Enabled deep learning from both teaching team and peers. Prof Smith is the first time I’ve had a professor integrate student discussion posts and Zoom chat comments into lectures directly–really helped build a sense of community among classmates and showed us she valued our thoughts. The level of feedback on assignments was so appreciated and valued!! Supported my learning."

"Professor Smith is an engaging lecturer. She created a safe space for open dialogue—even around difficult topics."

"Professor Smith was great. She was able to provide a space that allowed for a lot of learning and dialogue to occur. Her thoughtful responses to questions and ability to hear tangential thoughts from students and roll with it was very well done. I thought her culmination of course readings were excellent. I will definitely recommend peers to take this course with her in the future."

"So knowledgeable and welcoming of all viewpoints. Willing to follow the conversation wherever it went but managed to bring us back on topic. I appreciated that she was choosing readings as we went along to respond to current events and students' suggestions. Her dedication to the class was apparent as she incorporated discussion post content into slides and graded our final papers within hours of submission."

"Samantha was always very thorough in her explanations and took the time to answer every question asked, providing insightful answers that benefited the class. She also preaches what she teaches and truly believes in the content and principles she teaches in her class."

"She was so warm and receptive and encouraged you to support your ideas. She was never dismissive and clearly has a love of learning and data."

"I find myself thinking back to this class daily, relating the discussions and readings directly to my day-to-day. I have been joking that my team members are basically taking this class with me because I seem to speak about it at many of my team meetings."

"These discussions helped me be more at ease with all the chaos in my life as a federal consultant, and helped me stay optimistic at times that I maybe wouldn't always be."

You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure

A key takeaway from students
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“She ensured our comprehension of central tenants were backed by data and empowered with history.”

"If you're not tracking the data, how can you track progress? I think this is an incredibly important point."

"It is almost impossible to select only one BIG takeaway from this course; however, I know what will stick with me and impact my business and clients the most: 'You can’t manage what you don’t measure.' Although this message has been present in other ALM courses it was reinforced here in a way that makes it unforgettable."

"Measurements and data provide objective truth when we're surrounded by subjectivity, including our own. There is a sense of safety by including objectivity into business practices, reinforcing what can be celebrated and what needs addressing."

“She ensured our comprehension of central tenants were backed by data and empowered with history.”

"If you're not tracking the data, how can you track progress? I think this is an incredibly important point."

"It is almost impossible to select only one BIG takeaway from this course; however, I know what will stick with me and impact my business and clients the most: 'You can’t manage what you don’t measure.' Although this message has been present in other ALM courses it was reinforced here in a way that makes it unforgettable."

"Measurements and data provide objective truth when we're surrounded by subjectivity, including our own. There is a sense of safety by including objectivity into business practices, reinforcing what can be celebrated and what needs addressing."

“She ensured our comprehension of central tenants were backed by data and empowered with history.”

"If you're not tracking the data, how can you track progress? I think this is an incredibly important point."

"It is almost impossible to select only one BIG takeaway from this course; however, I know what will stick with me and impact my business and clients the most: 'You can’t manage what you don’t measure.' Although this message has been present in other ALM courses it was reinforced here in a way that makes it unforgettable."

"Measurements and data provide objective truth when we're surrounded by subjectivity, including our own. There is a sense of safety by including objectivity into business practices, reinforcing what can be celebrated and what needs addressing."