University Times

To Arthur S. Levine, culture isn't just something you grow in a Petri dish.

"I've always been as interested in the humanities as in the sciences," says Levine, who was named last week as Pitt senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences and dean of the medical school, effective Nov. 1.

Levine, 61, currently is scientific director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development within the National Institutes of Health, where he has worked for the last 31 years.

Levine caught the science bug as a youngster in Cleveland, admiring the successes of his cousin Donald Glaser, a Nobel Prize winner for physics. But as an undergrad, Levine majored in comparative literature at Columbia University and edited the school's literary review.

"It took me a while to grow up and focus on exactly what I wanted to do," Levine recalls. "But I have never regretted the time I've spent on things other than science because I think they have helped me to be a better physician and scientist.

"The habit of my mind is quite catholic. I'm excited and curious about all aspects of the human condition." Levine's wife, Ruth, until recently was on the staff of the National Endowment for the Arts. She currently is a full-time painter. The Levines have three adult daughters.

Last week, in a telephone interview from his office in Bethesda, Md., Levine talked with University Times Assistant Editor Bruce Steele.

UNIVERSITY TIMES: What was it about the senior vice chancellor job that attracted you? LEVINE: I think what attracts me is the combination of the two jobs ã dean of the medical school and senior vice chancellor ã because much as I see medicine and science as an integral, but not as an exclusive part, of scholarship into the human condition, at the same time I think all the health sciences are interrelated. And the job at Pittsburgh is an opportunity, in fact, to exhort and to foster and to further that integration.

During the searches that Pitt previously conducted for a successor to Dr. Detre, some candidates reportedly expressed dismay that they wouldn't have the budgetary clout they thought they needed, that clinical income and other revenue would be controlled by UPMC Health System and not the University. Was that a concern for you? It isn't a concern for me because I don't think that credibility and influence derive from money, always. I think they derive equally from intellectual credibility. And I would like to believe that this position gives me the opportunity to exercise sufficient intellectual credibility that I can, hopefully, get things done through force of moral suasion and leadership, independent of a large amount of money.

I also think that if my job primarily is focused on academics, on research and education, then the end product of that would be advances in patient care, which would be very good for UPMC, obviously.

Some professors have suggested that Dr. Detre's successor ã unless he's some combination of Godzilla and a great white shark ã is going to be eaten alive by Jeff Romoff and the rest of the UPMC leadership. Fairly or unfairly, they are portrayed as high-powered, predatory business people who don't have the luxury or inclination to worry about things like teaching and tenure rights.

I have every confidence that Mr. Romoff and his colleagues in UPMC value medical research because they recognize clearly that in this climate, for an academic health center to succeed it has to offer something that community hospitals may not be able to offer. And that "something" is predicated upon research and having first-rate physicians practicing within their complex. Therefore, it would be extremely short-sighted to allow a medical school and a research establishment to founder ã because, in the long run, that would hurt the fortunes of UPMC. Mr. Romoff has stated that very clearly to me, and I have no reason to doubt that.

Could you assess the strengths and, if any, the weaknesses of the medical school and the five other Health Sciences schools at Pitt? I certainly can articulate the strengths that are known to me, but it would be very premature for me to talk about weaknesses because I'm not there. I haven't been immersed enough in the details to make an enlightened comment.

But the strengths of the medical school include the departments of surgery and psychiatry, very obviously. They're probably the best-funded departments in the country with respect to their funding from the NIH. There's no question that they are world-class departments. I think the obstetrics and gynecology department is very strong. But I wouldn't want to go beyond that at this point because I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to say what else is strong, and I wouldn't want to be prejudicial by omitting somebody that I should have included.

Chancellor Nordenberg said it's significant that much of your professional life has been devoted to research in molecular biology, an area that he said "likely will produce many of the medical miracles of the future." Is that a research focus that you plan to emphasize at Pitt? Yes. I think it will be emphasized universally, but I certainly hope that I can accelerate its focus at Pitt. I've spent my whole career as a molecular biologist. I have a molecular biology lab. I think it's transparent that already molecular biology is redounding to the benefit of human health. Many of our new drug products are the results of bioengineering, which in turn depends upon the techniques of molecular biology. Gene therapy obviously is a fruit of molecular biology. In fact, everything we know about human biology currently has been advanced ã and advanced almost logarithmically ã by the insights we've gained through molecular biology. And now, the challenge is to turn that into practical methods of preventing and treating disease.

It's said that Pitt is viewed more positively at a distance than locally. Before coming here, what was your sense of the reputations of Pitt, its Health Sciences schools and the medical center? Well, they have a very strong reputation. This is one of the nation's leading medical complexes. It's a top-tier medical school, and it's a top-tier hospital complex, and at least some of the other schools of Health Sciences are also top-tier. The School of Nursing, for example, is the fifth-ranked nursing school nationally. I think it's a remarkably successful academic and patient care enterprise. I'm surprised to hear that it's not valued locally. I would have thought that it was a major player in the life of Pittsburgh.

It is, but I think it's also fair to say some people in western Pennsylvania don't appreciate how far Pitt has come from the street car university it used to be.

Yes, but time and again academic and non-academic enterprises have sprung up almost overnight and grown strong. Look at the corporations we have in this country that we hadn't heard of 20 years ago. Microsoft, Intela One of the things that's given [the University of] Pittsburgh tremendous momentum has, in fact, been the Health Sciences. The organ transplant program is probably the country's leading transplant program, certainly the largest. That's given the University a tremendous amount of visibility and stature, as has the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, as has the University's comprehensive cancer center. All these things have happened over the last two or three decades.

Let me just make one other point, because I don't want to dwell on the Health Sciences to the exclusion of other departments of the University. I am aware that the Department of Philosophy, for example, is one of the country's leading philosophy departments. And I'm sure there are other fine departments as well.

Some professors and students have voiced concern that, in the current health care climate, teaching and academic research may take a back seat in the Health Sciences to clinical and revenue-producing work.

But we've already addressed that question, right? At an institutional level. But how about in terms of shared governance ã working on a day-to-day level in collaboration with the faculty? But I meanathat's my job. I'm not sure I understand the question. I can't imagine not working with the faculty on a day-to-day basis.

Well, you could view it as, "I'm the administrator and those are the employees." I have never had that relationship with anybody with whom I've worked. At the NIH for over 30 years ã these people are my colleagues, they're not my employees. We have different jobs, but our goal is to get to the same place. I'm not a bureaucratic person, nor a hierarchical person. I have no interest in anything other than collegiality. That doesn't mean that I'm not decisive. My role is to listen as carefully as I can, to do my homework as assiduously as I can, and in the fullness of time to make a decision. But that isn't the same as being a master and having slaves.

Are you planning any organizational changes here? It's premature for me to comment on that. I need to get to the University. So far, the University knows far more about me than I now about it, right? [Laughing] I mean, I've been the subject of an endless amount of searching, in which the University has unearthed every jot of information it possibly could obtain about me, and basically what [information about Pitt] I have is whatever I could download from the Web.

So I really don't want to comment on that. I need to get in there and study my area of responsibility, learn the culture of the institution, learn the personalities, learn the organizational structure, salvage and foster and enhance what's good, and decide what to do about what may not be strong.

Officially, you begin work here Nov. 1. Will you be visiting campus? Do you have any plans for what you'll be doing here between now and then? Finding a place to live, which I will attempt to do quickly to allay my wife's angst. And I'm sure I will be coming in frequently between now and Nov. 1 to consult with Chancellor Nor-denberg and Dr. Detre and others.

I'm excited. I can't wait to get there. I think it's going to be terrific.