When Bill Tucker ’67 and Monica Drozd decided to renew their wedding vows, more than three decades after getting married before strangers in the Black Forest of Germany, they knew exactly where they wanted to be, and who they wanted to share the special moment with.
“We wanted to renew our vows in a context that, while still small and intimate, took place in a more personally meaningful location,” says Tucker. “Bates and Bill Hiss immediately came to mind.”
Hiss, a 1966 Bates graduate, was Tucker’s college roommate back in the day. They’ve been friends ever since. And besides a long career heading Bates’ admission program, Hiss is also a licensed minister in the United Church of Christ.
“With one of my oldest, dearest friends to officiate — he kind of pulled the arc of our lives together,” Tucker says.
So it happened that Tucker and Drozd re-dedicated their union next to Lake Andrews last Friday morning, with Hiss officiating. His wife, Colleen Quint ’85, joined the gathering, along with two official witnesses, Bates leadership gifts officers Cary Gemmer ’07 and Rebecca Lazure.
Tucker wore a suit with his father’s cufflinks and tie clip, which held sentimental value. Drozd held a bouquet of fresh flowers cut from Gemmer’s garden. The more casual — but special — event reflected the first time they exchanged vows: in a remote German chapel, witnessed by a handful of tourists and travelers.
Drozd did not attend Bates, but she and Tucker share a love for the school, and Drozd teared up as she explained how much having the ceremony at Bates meant to her. “I can’t even express in words — my tears are probably sufficient,” Drozd says. “Bill loves Bates, I love Bates and I love Bill.”
Hiss and Tucker met during Hiss’ senior year and Tucker’s junior year. Tucker was 26 years old at that point, older than a typical Bates junior. After spending the better part of a decade in and out of Bates including service in the U.S. Army with the Military Police Corps in Korea, he was finally ready to finish his degree.
“We didn’t meet until we both moved into apartments on the top floor of what’s now Turner House,” Hiss recalls. They were studying two very different things: Hiss was studying English, and Tucker was majoring in psychology. They both found the other’s studies to be interesting, and this set the stage for their lives to complement each other for the next 57 years.
“Fresh out of the military and filled with anxiety over returning to college after a five-year hiatus, I found in Bill not only a good friend,” Tucker says, “but a role model of academic engagement combined with social conscience.”
“He didn’t really ‘get’ what the intellectual life was all about,” Hiss says of Tucker. “And he sort of learned that, he said, from watching me write an honors thesis, in the English department, on a topic nobody would want to read about.”
The friends left Bates and became leaders in their fields. Hiss became a national expert on the gatekeeping effect of standardized tests like the SAT, while Tucker, a professor emeritus of psychology at Rutgers University, used his academic career to focus on how social science has been used to advance oppressive and racist social policies.
“To say that Bill Tucker has a lifelong commitment to racial and social justice is a big understatement,” says Hiss.
During the ceremony, Hiss, dressed for the occasion in his academic robe and hood, reflecting his Tufts Ph.D., and a minister’s stole, spoke about the love Tucker and Drozd share. He told them that “caring for each other and caring for other people is what you two do.”
Like any group of old friends, they recognize that every moment spent together is more special as the years march on. Tucker and Drozd clasped each other’s hands while Hiss talked about the couple and their love.
He told the small gathering that Tucker and Drozd met at a dance competition, and “the two of these folks are spectacular dancers, among other things. Lucky Bill,” Hiss said, “and yes, lucky Monica, too. And I have to say, at this moment, lucky me, too.”
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