Meet your 2024 – 2025 Leadership Team
Board Members
President – Faye Schrater
Secretary – Sharon Powers
Treasurer – Position Open
Membership Chair – Debbie Kurz
Program Chair – Position Open
DEI Chair – Peg Kimple
Scholarships and Grants – Jill Donley
Committee Officers
Scholarships – Kathleen Adams
NCCWSL and VAP Travel Grants – Kathy Fine-Dare
Finance – Nadine Ancel
Programs – Jeannie Nadel
Editor – The Sage – Katherine Burgess
Biographic Information on Board Members & Committee Officers
Faye Schrater – President
Faye was born and raised in rural Wyoming. She earned a B.S. and M.S. in Microbiology from the University of Wyoming, then spent two years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. After the Peace Corps she worked as a research technician, then earned a Ph.D. in Immunology and Infectious Disease from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and academic career included positions at New York University Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and Smith College. At Smith, in addition to teaching, she worked with the Project on Women and Social Change to study gender issues in science.
She served as a consultant on the development of new contraceptive methods for women for the World Health Organization, and was the U.S. liaison to WHO’s Gender Advisory Panel. Throughout her professional career she advised, consulted, worked on, and advocated for gender equality and reproductive rights.
Faye moved to Durango in 2003. She has served on Round Up Board for LPEA, the Scholarship Committee for Women’s Resource Center, and the Ethics Committee for Mercy Regional Medical Center.
She is proud to be a member of AAUW, whose mission to support women in achieving their goals aligns with her own. She has been a Board member since 2016, has served as Public Policy Liaison, and Member-at Large. Faye is the recently elected President of AAUW Durango and will bring to the Branch and membership the continuation of her dedication to solving issues relevant to women.
Sharon Powers – Secretary
I was born and raised in Northern California. I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from California State University, Chico and then a Masters in International Business Studies from the University of South Carolina. I joined Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC) in 1988, working and living in many locations including Houston, Kazakhstan and Russia before landing back in San Francisco. While in San Francisco with PwC I served for 10 years on the board of Professional Business Women of California (PBWC), a non-profit founded in 1989 by Congresswoman Jackie Speier to advance the role of women in the workplace. I retired from PwC in 2015 and settled in Durango in 2019.
Treasurer – Position Open
Debbie Kurz – Membership Chair
Debbie Kurz was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and earned a BS in Pharmacy from Purdue University in 1979. She enjoyed a varied career using her pharmacy background in nontraditional settings. She worked as a Cosmetic Chemist for Elizabeth Arden, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly at the time. She then joined Lilly working in clinical research to collect, analyze and submit safety and efficacy data for new drugs. Debbie ultimately specialized in Clinical Quality Assurance. She left Lilly to join a start-up company that provided clinical trial data management services to pharmaceutical companies. She spent the last eight years of her career as president of DSK Consulting: Quality in Global Clinical Research. Her career allowed her to travel extensively both domestically and internationally.
Both drawn to the mountains, Debbie and her husband Ken moved to Durango in 2004 when he retired. They enjoyed skiing, hiking, Jazzercise and Pilates for many years. Debbie has been active with Big Brothers Big Sisters for nearly 20 years, including 6 years serving on their board. For the past 7 years, she has enjoyed a sweet friendship as a Big Sister to a wonderful Little. She has volunteered with Snowdown as a writer for the Schedule of Events since 2013 and is proud to have been on stage for three years of Snowdown Follies. She also loves playing Mah Jong with the AAUW interest group!
Program Chair – Position Open
DEI Chair – Peg Kimple
Peg grew up in southern New Jersey. She attended Earlham College, a small Quaker college in Indiana. earning a degree in Far Eastern History. A foreign study experience took her to Japan, where she stayed with the family of a girl who had lived as an exchange student with her US family for a year. She has returned to Japan twice since, once on a national fellowship to work with Japanese not-for-profits. Later she earned a Master’s Degree from the State University of New York.
Peg’s first work experience was interviewing teen mothers about their substance use during pregnancy. She developed a deep respect for their resilience and sense of responsibility during their pregnancies. Peg continued to work with women’s issues: reproductive health, domestic violence, and teen motherhood. And finally, Peg was able to make clear the relationship between women’s issues and substance abuse; she became the coordinator of a coalition that brought a diverse urban community to understand how substance abuse affects everyone. For this work, the local NAACP awarded Peg the honor of “Woman of the Year”.
Scholarships and Grants – Jill Donley
Jill Donley was born in San Francisco, CA and raised in the Bay Area with her four siblings including her twin brother, Jack. She attended California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, CA earning at BA in Liberal Studies. Jill taught elementary school for ten years earning two MAed in Technology in Education and Supervision and Evaluation.
She became an elementary school principal in Larkspur, CO and after seven years was selected to open a new
year-round elementary school in Castle Rock, CO. Jill moved to St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, CO to become the Director of Professional Development.
She earned a Certification from the National Association of Professional Development and served as board president of the Front Range BOCES (Board of Cooperative (Educational) Services). Jill retired from Colorado schools and moved to Cody, WY due to family obligations. While there she became the principal of one of the local schools, Eastside Elementary.
Jill also served as an ad-hoc professor for Colorado State University, teaching graduate-level courses and worked with the University of Wyoming coaching principals in struggling schools.
She also worked as a consultant mentoring new teachers and principals. Jill served as a board
member for CASA in Cody for many years.
Jill moved to Durango with her husband in 2023 to be closer to her family. She enjoys gardening, hiking and spending time with her grandkids.
Committee Officers
Scholarships – Kathleen Adams
Kathleen has a BS in Nursing and has worked and volunteered in the medical field for years. She founded a non-profit disease association in 1993, now international, based on the undiagnosed chronic illness of one of her children, Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome – a migraine variant.
She continues to administer the association and function as the research liaison to the medical team. Her community involvement is broad based and lends itself to her inherent drive to network.
She is a past board president of the Community Foundation Serving SW Colorado, on the leadership core of the League of Women Voters – La Plata and actively involved in the work of the La Plata County Democrats. She is an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Association from the national to the local level. Kathleen is widowed but surrounded by the six children and grandchildren who have grown up in her blended family. The family thrives on pushing boundaries and living out their values.
NCCWSL and VAP Travel Grants – Kathy Fine-Dare
Kathy Fine-Dare is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender/Women’s Studies at Fort Lewis College (FLC) in Durango, Colorado. She was born and raised in Indianapolis and received degrees in anthropology from DePauw University (BA) and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (MA, PhD). At FLC she served as anthropology department chair, coordinator of the gender/women’s Studies program, and as NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) compliance officer.
She continues active NAGPRA scholarship as well as collaborative research with an Indigenous community in Quito, Ecuador. She has authored and co-edited several articles and books, including Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA (Nebraska), The Andean World (Routledge, co-edited with Linda Seligmann) and a revised Spanish translation of Urban Mountain Beings: History, Indigeneity, and Geographies of Time in Quito, Ecuador (Lexington 2020; USFQ Press and Abya- Yala 2024).
In addition to her work with the Durango AAUW fundraising for FLC students active in the Village Aid Project (VAP) and who attend the AAUW National Conference of College Women Leaders (NCCWSL), Kathy currently serves on the boards of the Colorado Fulbright Association and the Mesa Verde Association.
Finance – Nadine Ancel
I was born and raised in Joliet, IL, the third of six children. I received my BSN from Loyola University in Chicago in 1973. I held various nursing positions in IL, LA, NJ, and VA. After working for 28 years as a public health nurse for Fairfax County Health Department in Fairfax, VA, I retired in 2005 and moved with my significant other to Durango, CO. I have volunteered with the Red Cross and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and was treasurer of the League of Women Voters of La Plata County for approximately 10 years. I joined AAUW Durango in the spring of 2020.
Programs – Jeannie Nadel
Jeannie was born February 16 1954 in Killeen Texas. A 4th generation Texan, her family moved from the Gulf Coast north to Houston and then continuing north to Dallas by the mid 60s. She attended Stephen F Austin State University and graduated BS Ed in elementary and special education. A career in magazine publishing culminated in her final career of teaching special needs children from ages 3-5. She is now retired and lives full time in Durango.