Marvin Druger’s name and likeness seem to be everywhere on Syracuse University’s campus. It’s on bricks, classrooms, even trees.
Behind the name synonymous with a teaching tradition at SU, is a man driven by a love of campus, teaching, and his wife.
Marvin Druger, 87, taught biology at Syracuse University for 47 years, teaching more than 50,000 students, he said. His style of teaching put a large focus on using technology to engage students. Engaging students came easy for Druger, whose extroverted personality and comedic stylings are still on full display.
He used to release exam results by hosting a show on UUTV, now known as CitrusTV. Each show began with an SNL style skit that Druger performed. His other popular method of releasing exam answer keys involved him throwing them out the window, by the hundreds, from his campus office.
He retired from teaching back in 2009, but he’s still been involved on campus, giving campus tours that are littered with his personal stories of a half-century at the university.
“And you know, he fit there with an umbrella and everybody have probably about 50 people around them,” said Steve Sartori, a longtime university photographer who has heard many of Druger’s “great” stories.
On the tours, he’ll claim he’s the reason benches were brought to campus, joke about influencing major donors to contribute to the construction of campus buildings, and show you the spot he watched President Johnson deliver his landmark Gulf of Tonkin speech in 1964. His wife, Patricia Druger, suggested Marvin start giving the tours.
It’s been a long time since Druger has given a campus tour. When we stopped at his home near campus, Druger was watching an NCAA tournament game. “I feel like I’m turning into a basketball,” Druger joked.
Keeping him home has been the pandemic and some ongoing health issues.
“I haven’t done anything since the COVID,” Druger said. “That was a real blow to me personally.”
Druger said he wants to make sure his stories outlive him. To make sure it happens, he wrote them down in a book that he’s trying to get published. Many of Sartori’s photos will be featured on the pages.
The book makes mention of the building on campus which holds an outsize significance to Druger. The Holden Observatory is home to the Patricia Meyers Druger Astronomy Learning Center.
“She died in 2014,” Druger said, holding back tears. “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me”
Patricia Druger loved the observatory, and had asked Marvin if they could make a contribution to restore it while it was inoperable.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, we gave enough donations.’ I said, ‘The physics department runs the astronomy thing, not the biology department, forget it.’ And so she forgot it.”
But Druger didn’t forget. Once his wife died, he went through with a donation as a way to memorialize Patricia. Druger says he still cries about his late wife every night.
“She worked with me all my life. She really made me what I am.”
Their relations can trace its roots back to a party in Brooklyn, and an elevator that was slow enough to give Druger enough time to ask her if he could call her. They were together for 60 years, married for 57.
“I can’t think about her without crying. What’s the point? She’s beautiful. And she was in every way.”
