Bader Philanthropies
The Sullivan Spaights Scholarship is made possible through the generosity of Bader Philanthropies and the Alfred and Isabel Bader Fund. Dr. Alfred Bader was a world-renowned chemist, art historian and dealer, lecturer, and philanthropist. Throughout his scientific and business career, he gained many honors, among them an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in May of 1980. Alfred died in 2017. Dr. Isabel Bader, the daughter of a northern Ontario family, believed the spoken word was a connection to a wider world. Drama and poetry gave her the confidence to stand before others, so after graduating from Victoria University in Toronto, she went to England, where she taught school children and shared her love for performance. Dr. Isabel Bader currently resides in Milwaukee.
Impact
This scholarship honors the legacies of two leaders in Milwaukee?s African-American community: the Reverend Leon Howard Sullivan, founder of the Opportunity Industrialization Center (OIC) in Milwaukee, who focused on job training and placement for members of minority communities; and Dr. Earnest Spaights, former Professor of Information Sciences at UWM, who established a model mentoring program for minority men at UWM.