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Article IndexThe couple returned to St. Thomas one year later, on Aug. 31, 2000, for a beachfront wedding.
"I had been to enough weddings where I saw the bride and groom obsessing over details, so I just said let's go by ourselves," Tepper says. "The guests were Elizabeth and me, the person who married us — who happened to be a minister of the Universal Life Church — and the events coordinator at the resort and her assistant. That's it."
Today, the Boonton Township residents continue to socialize with other Rutgers faculty and staff when they're away from their respective laboratories, and they continue to attend scientific meetings together. He serves as president of the 300-member International Basal Ganglia Society, she as vice president. They'll collaborate on the organization's 10th triennial meeting this June in Long Branch.
Along with their son Jacob, Abercrombie and Tepper are active members of Temple Beth Am in Parsippany, and their calendar fills up with travel, concerts, and family outings.
Jacob, just shy of 9, is as comfortable on the Rutgers campus as his parents. His mother, for one, is hopeful about where this son of two "nerdy science parents" will wind up.
"I can't wait to put him to work in the lab when he's old enough," she laughs.
Charles J. Coleman and Nancy Gulick: A legacy of love, and a passion for the arts
Before Charles J. Coleman retired in 2001 after more than 30 years of teaching at Rutgers-Camden, he and his wife Nancy Gulick had one inviolable household rule: No talking about Rutgers after 9 p.m.
"A complete moratorium was tough to follow," Gulick acknowledged recently, since the couple had met, dated and married against a scarlet background; two of their children are Rutgers grads; and their social network has always encompassed members of the Rutgers community.
The same colleagues came out in large numbers after Coleman died unexpectedly on January 21 of this year, at 76, providing a nurturing environment for Gulick, assistant dean of academic advising for the Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
"The expressions of sympathy at the viewing and the funeral, the cards and gifts — the level of it surprised me," said Gulick, who returned to work on February 2. She continues to be gratified by the outpouring of affection for her husband. "I'm very touched by it; it's very comforting."
The two met in 1979; she was an administrative assistant in the summer session office working on her MBA degree and he was an associate professor, already a highly acclaimed scholar of labor relations who played a key role in establishing the Rutgers School of Business in Camden.
"I was definitely aware of her presence on campus — I knew she was there," Coleman said in an interview shortly before his death.
Their first date came in 1982: a presentation by the Philadelphia ensemble Pro Musica of "The Messiah" at the Methodist Church in Haddonfield. The choice of performance reflected the academics' mutual love of the arts, including theater, opera, orchestra — if it was music, Charlie and Nancy were there. As an expression of that passion, the couple endowed the Gulick/Coleman Scholarship. Now in existence for more than 10 years, the award has gone to a Rutgers student majoring in musical theater or theater arts who has performed in, or assisted with, Rutgers-Camden theater productions. More recently, it has expanded to encompass a greater range of students. (The family has requested donations to the fund as a memorial for Coleman.)
Early on, the age difference between the two academics proved unsettling for Coleman, he acknowledged.
"It took a long time for me to adjust to this younger woman. I had to accept the fact that I could be in love with a woman 17 years younger than me, and that, strangely enough, she could love me back," he said.
They publicly professed that love before God and dear ones — many of them Rutgers colleagues, of course — on Nov. 18, 1983, in a ceremony presided over by Thomas J. Venables, director of the summer session at on Rutgers' Camden Campus and a Methodist minister.
Both had children from previous marriages; his were grown, Nancy's daughter was 6. One biological son and six grandchildren would eventually round out the blended family tree.
Several years later, Gulick and Coleman renewed their vows. Once again Venables officiated, this time joined by Father Pat Lavin, a former chaplain on the Camden Campus.
SOURCE: RUTGERS FOCUS
