Alumni memorialize a love story that began at Rutgers

Some love stories only get sweeter with time.

Take the one about Jim and Maya Colitsas, two Rutgers Business School alumni who trace the start of their love story back to the night they turned up at the same party. They had met briefly once before, but on the night of the party they started talking. In true college fashion, they continued talking through the night and over breakfast at the Somerset Diner.

Their dating turned into a romance that led to marriage and unfolded into a decades-long life together, with careers and children and an enduring sense of nostalgia for the university campus where they met and fell in love.

Nearly 30 years after they started dating, the couple named a bench near the statute of Willie the Silent on Voorhees Mall in the heart of the College Avenue Campus. It’s a spot where students gather on spring days, spread out blankets and throw frisbees. It's an area where students and visitors, alike, pass year-round on their way across the campus.

The bench is a tribute to their education and the role the university in their lives. On the metal bench, a small plaque reads: “May this bench inspire new beginnings and enduring bonds.”

“We wanted everyone to know that’s where our love story started, and we wanted to inspire other people to have not just love stories, but a story, at Rutgers,” Maya Colitsas explained.

Maya Shoikhet met Jim Colitsas in Frelinghuysen Hall in her sophomore year when she was helping a friend move into the fourth floor of the dormitory. He was a preceptor, greeting new residents. When she met him, Maya remembered thinking to herself that she would be spending more time on the fourth floor.

Months later, they met again outside the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house. She and her friends were waiting to go in. He belonged to the fraternity so when he saw them waiting, he brought them into the party as his guests.

They consider that February night as the beginning of their courtship.

Meanwhile, he continued his studies in history, political science and economics. He wanted to be a teacher. As his graduation approached in 1996, one of his economics professors advised him to pursue an MBA in Professional Accounting at the business school. While he was doing the master’s program, Maya graduated from Rutgers Business School with a degree in finance.

A few months after Maya graduated, Jim asked her to meet him at Old Queens. He was on campus helping a professor. As she went through the iron gate and followed the path through Old Queens, she found a trail of roses. Every few feet, she stopped to pick up another. “I thought he was just being sweet,” she said.

When she reached the steps of the office, there was Jim and suddenly he was on his knee, proposing. They married on a September day in 1998.

Maya spent a brief time in banking before she decided to return to Rutgers part-time to earn a master’s degree at the Graduate School of Education. Their career paths flipped: She became a middle school teacher, a career she still loves, and he went into the business world, working initially for Ernst & Young and then joining his father’s accounting practice near Princeton. 

Their two children are young adults now. Their son works for a tech start-up in New York City and their daughter is a pre-law student at West Point. “We’re at the next stage of our lives,” Maya said. “It’s a little strange.”

They have supported Rutgers for years, giving to both Rutgers University and Rutgers Business School. One of the areas they have consistently directed their giving is a fund established to assist students who experience financial hardship and are in jeopardy of leaving college. “I believe in education,” Jim said. “I believe it’s important for people who want to change their situation.”

There is also a sense of appreciation for the role a college education played in their own lives. “Jim is a very loyal person,” Maya said. “Rutgers is very important to him.”

The bench was a more personal act to memorialize their time at Rutgers. “It’s a place to go and to sit,” Maya said. “When we’re long gone, I hope our kids will sit on that bench and remember that everything started here.” 

-Susan Todd