A LIFE CHANGED BY GIVING

Dr. Norman Levan

Carmen Schaad sat quietly in a room at Bakersfield's Heart Hospital. In the bed slept her 88-year-old boss. To pass the time on that long night in 2004, she watched the Bakersfield Beautiful Awards ceremony on television.

Dr. Norman Levan, a Bakersfield dermatologist, her employer and friend for four decades, faced surgery the next morning to clear a blockage from his heart. As Carmen watched people being honored, she chewed on an idea.

Hours later, when Levan awoke from surgery, his office manager lectured him. "If he thought he had nine lives, he had already gone through seven of them," she recalls telling him.

Her message was clear: His time was running out. Instead of just doling out his money to worthy causes in his will, as he planned to do, he should give the millions of dollars he amassed through his lifelong investing while he was still alive.

"I wanted to see the smile on his face. I wanted him to see the buildings that would be built with his money and the programs that would be started. And I wanted to nominate him for an award," she explained.

She was convincing. Levan soon began giving away his money. He also began smiling a lot. Both Carmen and his longtime friend, former Bakersfield College President John Collins, agree: The giving campaign came at the right time.

Levan's wife, Betty, had just died. The childless couple, who met on a tennis court more than a half century ago, were the centers of each other's lives. Levan profoundly missed his wife. Her death narrowed his world to his one-day-a-week medical practice and reading books.

His decision to start giving away his money "changed his life," said Collins, who also is Levan's patient. "He is now having a lot of fun."

GENEROUS DONATIONS

So far, Levan has made four massive donations -- each nearly $6 million -- to three colleges and a Jerusalem hospital. With each donation he gets accolades, invitations to events and encouragement to watch buildings and programs started in his name. Although coy about the size of his wealth, it appears the now 93-year-old plans to give even more.

Each donation is structured to reinforce his lifelong belief that no matter what your career is, you must study the humanities to be truly educated. He is an outspoken critic of his medical profession, which he considers dominated by people too focused on science and the commercial rewards of healing.

His first donation went to Bakersfield College, where it is being used to develop the Norman Levan Center for the Humanities. His $5.6 million donation is the largest the college has ever received and is funding the renovation of an existing building to house the center and its programs. A portion of the money also supports the Levan Institute that offers lifelong learning classes to area residents 55 years of age and older.

At the University of Southern California, where he earned his medical degree and later headed the school's Dermatology Department, a similar donation funds the Norman Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, encouraging students to explore new ways of thinking.

At Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, another nearly $6 million donation opened the Dr. Norman Levan Center for Humanistic Medicine to foster compassionate care at the 105-year-old hospital.

St. John's College in Santa Fe, N.M., is using a fourth $6 million gift to build the Norman and Betty Levan Hall in its Graduate Institute of Liberal Education. The college bases its curriculum on studying great Western books. Levan says the advanced degree he earned from the institute "changed my life."

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Levan's medical career and his passion for studying the humanities are as remarkable as the millions of dollars he has given away.

Levan was born in a Cleveland suburb, where his father, Joseph, worked as a toolmaker and his mother, Rose, stayed home to raise Levan, the youngest, and his three sisters. His parents divorced and his mother moved with her teenage son to Detroit, where his sister, Goldie, landed a teaching job. It was during the Depression, when jobs were scarce. Levan and his mother later followed Goldie to the West Coast.

A good student whose education was jump-started at home by his teacher sister, Levan skipped grades and graduated from high school at 16. He then entered USC as an English major. Teased by a brother-in-law that he would end up teaching like his sisters, or selling newspaper ads, Levan took the USC medical school entrance exam, passing it with a top score. This was remarkable, since Levan had shunned "boring" science classes and thought pre-med students were "quite dull."

He acquiesced to the school's demand that he complete at least a course in organic chemistry and went on to earn a medical degree from USC. He served as a medical officer during World War II, with assignments in the Pacific.

A teenage bout with acne exposed him to dermatology. That, combined with his wartime experience treating soldiers' skin diseases, led to his medical specialty. He joined a private practice after the war and volunteered to teach in USC's fledgling Dermatology Department. When the department expanded, he became its first chairman and full-time faculty member.

In 1961, a group of Bakersfield doctors asked Levan to travel to Bakersfield once a week to treat difficult cases. When he retired from USC a few years later, he and Betty, a champion bridge player, moved to Bakersfield.

Levan credits his fortune to luck. He said he was required to invest 8 percent of his faculty salary into a university account, which USC matched. He invested another 8 percent privately.

"That was when the Dow was 400," he recalled. By the time he began giving his fortune away, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had climbed to more than 14,000.

Levan is similarly humble in explaining his decision to give away his money.

With a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips, he quotes 19th century American industrialist Andrew Carnegie: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced."

Levan won't be disgraced.

This article published on May 30, 2009 in The Bakersfield Californian.

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