Diane Tickton Schuster
Adult Jewish Learning Working Group Consultant
Diane Tickton Schuster is an independent scholar in Jewish education who has served as an affiliated scholar at the Mandel Center since 2016. Under her direction, the Center’s Portraits of Jewish Learning project culminated in the books, “Portraits of Jewish Learning: Viewing Contemporary Jewish Education Close-In” (2019), and "Portraits of Adult Jewish Learning: Making Meaning at Many Tables" (2022). Diane's 2003 book, “Jewish Lives, Jewish Learning: Adult Jewish Learning in Theory and Practice,” is required reading at rabbinical seminaries and adult education programs across the Jewish community. Her other publications include “A Journey of Heart and Mind” (with Lisa Grant, Meredith Woocher, and Steven M. Cohen), “A Covenant of Dreams,” and “Women’s Lives Through Time: Educated American Women of the Twentieth Century.”
Diane previously taught at Hebrew Union College-Los Angeles, the American Jewish University, Brandeis University's Institute for Informal Jewish Education, and California State University-Fullerton. From 2012 to 2015 she served as the Congregational Inquiry Coordinator for the Union of Reform Judaism’s B’nai Mitzvah Revolution project. Prior to her work in Jewish education, she wrote about the lives of educated women and taught university courses in lifespan development, teacher development and social science research methodology.
In her local community, Diane is the founding manager of Kol HaEmek Jewish Community Chorale and a member of the board of the Claremont School of Theology. She earned her BA at the University of Michigan, MSW at UC Berkeley, and PhD at Claremont Graduate University.