Students plan Alfred Bader’s 100th birthday celebration with symposium

This isn’t the first time Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has celebrated Alfred R. Bader, philanthropist, entrepreneur, chemist, and art collector. In 2004, the university honored his 80th birthday with activities and events such as a street renaming.

“But this is the first time something of this magnitude [has been planned] that also accounts for a full picture of Alfred Bader’s impact and passions,” says Daniel Reddy, PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at Queen’s University and Queen’s University International Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society (Q-ACS) member. He also says it’s the first time, at least to his knowledge, that Queen’s University students have planned an event specifically in honor of Bader.

Bader, an ACS member for 60 years, has had a notable career—one that includes founding Aldrich Chemical, now a part of MilliporeSigma. Maybe more famous than his career has been his philanthropy. One example of this within ACS is his and his wife Isabel Bader’s initial funding of Project SEED in 1991, which allows students with diverse identities and socioeconomic backgrounds to continue their research experience from the program for a second summer. In addition to his career and philanthropy, Bader was also well known for his art collection.

Reddy explained that the idea of a 100th birthday symposium materialized when he became involved in the process of seeking an ACS International Historic Chemical Landmark designation, which would recognize all that Bader has done for chemistry and chemists alike. While the landmark hasn’t been officially approved, the students have worked through some major hurdles in that process.

“We took that momentum and support we gathered along the way and said, you know, this year is also his 100th birthday; we should organize a symposium as part of that,” says Reddy.

“It’s been helpful, us being students and putting this on, in terms of motivating people to get on board and also setting a good example,” says Maximilian van Zyl, MSc candidate in the Department of Chemistry at Queen’s University and Q-ACS member. He hopes that their work will demonstrate to other students at the university what can be achieved when you have good ideas, motivation to act on them, and a good strategy for networking.

Since about April of this year, van Zyl and Reddy have been thinking about this symposium 7 days a week, citing persistence as a recurring theme for making everything about honoring Bader possible. The two have had to be comfortable finding workarounds, coordinating schedules, applying for grants, and being told no.

“I think that’s been one of our strong points . . . We’ve hit a lot of hurdles, but instead of just letting that be the end of things, we found ways around it,” Reddy says. That approach has been important in planning the symposium and working to obtain the International Chemical Historic Landmark designation. Reddy and the former vice president of the Q-ACS student chapter, Mark McKeown, spent about 2½ years working toward meeting the criteria—and they’ve been told no a couple of times. “Not being afraid to be told no is huge,” says Reddy.

Van Zyl says that the planning required research into Bader as a chemist, entrepreneur, and art collector—and also a look into his journey that led to his many accomplishments.The hardships he faced, his motivations, and the fact that he used his success to help others is “something that I think each of us should look to achieve in our own small way—or maybe even our own big way,” says van Zyl.

Bader became a refugee at the age of 14 and again at 16. The first time was when he left Austria, which was taken over by the Nazi regime, fleeing the Nazi genocide as a Jew and heading for England. The second time was at age 16, when he was deported from England to Canada and interned at a prisoner-of-war camp.

“When you’re a child refugee, you have to rely on the goodness, support, and care of others—but also strangers,” says Daniel J. Bader, president and CEO of Bader Philanthropies. “He had, you know, many people, dozens, maybe hundreds of people in various countries who helped him . . . he then took that spirit and became who he was as a person.”

“Yes, he was a chemist [who] was a philanthropist, but I think more than anything, he was a refugee who became a successful entrepreneur, who had a PhD in chemistry, who decided to contribute his wealth back to society,” says Bader.

Reddy says they attempted to capture in the symposium some essence of all of Bader’s areas of influence. But, he says, there’s just too much when you see an impact that spans the globe.

“I think as chemists, we get a little caught up in the micro and the nano, and we forget that there is a great big, wide world outside the lab,” Reddy says. Alfred Bader took his chemistry prowess—he had a PhD in organic chemistry from Harvard—but also formed relationships with people on both a personal and a business level and ultimately built a billion-dollar industry. “There’s a lot more that goes into being a chemist than being a phenomenal researcher to have that level of impact—at least I think you’ve gotta be such a holistic and sort of incredible person [to achieve what Alfred Bader has achieved].”

Bader’s philanthropic impact goes beyond the ACS. Bader and his wife Isabel endowed chair positions at Queen’s University in organic chemistry, Northern Baroque art, and Southern Baroque art.

“He’s also given Queen’s University three Rembrandts and hundreds of other European paintings as well as millions of dollars to Queens University and other institutions, bursary scholarships, and fellowships all over the world. His philanthropy was extensive, global, and really profound in what it did,” says Bader.

Bader in art

Bader’s art collection includes many pieces of 17th-century Dutch art, specifically that of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, and van Rijn's students and colleagues.

Suzanne van de Meerendonk is the Bader Curator of European Art at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. She will be taking part in a performance session during the symposium with Tanya Paul, who is the Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Van de Meerendonk’s position was established through Bader funding—funding that made this collaboration possible.

Van de Meerendonk has been working with the Bader art collection for the last 4 years and has often thought about how to present the collection in a way that creates links between topics that people are concerned with today and the themes of artwork then.

Art and chemistry were both integral parts of Bader’s life and interests.

“In a way, I think as a collector, he was a scientist,” says van de Meerendonk. “He was very good about collecting, looking at artworks from this material point of view, and understanding the condition of artworks, the aging process, and the importance of conservation and conservation science. . . . He had the attention and understanding of what happens to artworks through certain processes and time. . . I think we’re very lucky to have, in some cases, really wonderful artworks where [Bader] saw the value of those works when he purchased them.”

Van de Meerendonk says Bader’s interest in art likely had to do with what it says about humanity and the kind of stories the works inspired. As a Jewish person, Bader was also invested in knowledge of the Bible. “You know, he said his ABCs [were] arts, the Bible, and chemistry. So these were his three main interests in life—and, of course Isabel, who is the most important actual person.”

Bader also collected chemicals, “so it’s that collector’s spirit you see,” van de Meerendonk says.

“When you look at a collection, people sometimes think, oh, people collect art that they think looks nice in their house or they just think looks good, but [for Bader] it was very personal,” van de Meerendonk says. “And I think it’s nice to kind of think about how that legacy continues in the collection and the way that we talk about it today.”

Bader in research

“I think about Alfred as this entrepreneur who basically took what people like me do in the lab and then made it available to everybody else in the world,” says Andrew Evans, Alfred R. Bader Chair of Organic Chemistry. “And that’s what was unique about him. No one was doing that before Alfred did it.”

Alfred and Isabel traveled around the world to see what was currently popular in the lab—which reagent, what reactions were new—and then they’d ask if they could sell them.

Alfred Bader began his career at Queens as an undergraduate. Because of his background as a refugee and Jew, at that time, it was difficult to gain admission into any schools, but he was granted admission to Queens. “Because of that, he always held Queens in high regard because he always felt that his life was down to the fact that he was able to get an education here and build off that,” says Evans.

Evans says Alfred and Isabel have been kind to Queens in terms of endowments.

The influence endowments like the Alfred R. Bader Chair of Organic Chemistry have for research is immense. Evan’s endowment has allowed him to work with collaborators in other schools within Queen’s University, such as the Department of Biology, which has led to several additional grants.

“It gives you a lot of flexibility, a lot of freedom to be intellectually curious,” Evans says. “And I think that’s what Alfred had in mind. I think Alfred basically wanted people to develop innovative new science.”

Evans’ says that an often overlooked aspect of Bader’s contributions is acknowledging the rate at which science moved after Bader started selling chemicals in the manner he did.

Before Bader, if you needed a reagent, you often had to make it in the lab yourself. “What he did was put hundreds of thousands of compounds in a catalog, and if you want to do overnight [shipping], you can have it the next day.” says Evans. “The level of efficiency in science probably went up immeasurably because of what he did. He gave everyone the ability to move at a new pace, not one where you’re restricted to what you had in the lab and what you can make in the short term.”

Evans says that it’s not an overstatement to say that Bader was an inspiration—it wasn’t that he was innovative and got rich but that he gave back from what the community had given him.

“I think Alfred and Isabel would be touched by [the fact this was all organized by students],” says Evans.

Both Reddy and van Zyl have high hopes for the day.

“I would love for people at the university, the Kingston community at large, around the world, people who read this article, to get a greater sense of exactly how incredible Alfred Bader’s legacy has been for the world of chemistry, for art, for philanthropy, around the globe,” says van Zyl. “I hope they find interest in a variety of disciplines besides that in which they have expertise.”

“We are just this small ACS international student chapter, and we wanted to do something that now has the attention of the entire university and beyond,” says Reddy. “And so, I hope it also is a testament to what happens when you support students fully.”

More information about the symposium and sessions can be found online at www.chem.queensu.ca/celebrating-late-dr-alfred-r-bader-100th-birthday-symposium.