Allen Questrom and Kelli Questrom spent their careers taking fabled institutions and setting new standards for them—he as a retail turnaround artist who rescued Nieman Marcus, JCPenney, Barneys, and the chain that would acquire Macy’s from lackluster or bankrupt operations, she as a fashion promoter with an eagle eye for up-and-coming design in both attire and store architecture.

Their record $50 million gift to BU this year will set even higher standards for Allen Questrom’s beloved alma mater, the renamed Questrom School of Business, expanding its faculty and building space.

The Questroms will each receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters on Sunday, May 17, at BU’s 142nd Commencement. “Transformation has been central to their lives,” their degree citation reads. “But it has never been change for its own sake. Rather, the Questroms pursue change where it can make things better.”

Asked the secret to his business success, BU trustee Allen Questrom (Questrom’64) says that he rescued stores, in part, by asking lots of questions.

“I’d talk to the elevator operators, I’d talk to the greeter at the front door, I’d talk to the people in the distribution center. I’d ask them, ‘What’s going on, how do we do this better?’ They all had useful ideas. There’s not one person in a company who can’t make a contribution.”

Questrom says that over his career he rarely fired anyone. “The reason businesses get into trouble is not the people who work there, but generally the boss’ lack of focus or understanding of the company culture,” he says. Most top brass didn’t have a sharp strategy, and he’d tell them, “We’re going to identify five objectives to focus on—memorize them. When we talk, let’s make sure it’s about those five issues, because they’re going to be the key to getting our business to the next level.”

Questrom grew up in Waltham, Mass., the son of a self-employed machinist with a knack for fixing just about anything, from clocks to toys to airplanes. Questrom fils confesses that he ambled through his early youth without a career plan, coming to study at BU to fulfill his grandmother’s wish that he attend college, and because it was an easy commute by train. He worked his way through college with various jobs, including driving trucks of hazardous waste to New York City.

Kelli Questrom did likewise; she sang and played guitar in clubs and waited tables, honing her cooking skills by scrutinizing chefs. As a child, she recalls, she “was a quick study of fashion and design.” Her family didn’t shop at the upscale Montaldo’s specialty store in her hometown of Denver, Colo., but she enjoyed browsing its aisles.

A retail professor recommended her for Abraham & Straus’ coveted junior executive training squad, which exposed college students to the world of retailing during the summer between junior and senior year. Kelli finished her stint with a job offer. Meanwhile, Allen Questrom, who’d abandoned dreams of a career as a ski instructor because the winter after he graduated was snowless, instead went to work at Abraham & Straus, where the two met.

They are “honored and humbled” to be chosen as honorary degree recipients, the Questroms say: “An honorary degree acknowledges the recipient for having contributed something of lasting significance to their calling, community, and to society at large. That, of course, is the mission of higher education, to prepare the next generation for dreaming big, and for making a lifelong commitment to fulfillment of the obligation to oneself, to others, and to the advancement of mankind.

“What makes us happiest of all in receiving this wonderful honor from BU is its provocation to think back upon what the honor represents: the hard but exciting work of achieving one dream at a time; the courage and humility to navigate both the challenges and the victories; the teachers, mentors, family, and friends who’ve informed and steadied our course; and the Light showing us the path walked with the one we love.”

This year’s other BU honorary degree recipients are journalist and TV host Meredith Vieira, who will give the Commencement address, Doctor of Humane Letters; Cornell Brooks (STH’87), president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who will be the Baccalaureate speaker, Doctor of Laws; and jazz promoter, producer, and Grammy winner George Wein (CAS’50), Doctor of Humane Letters.

More information about Commencement can be found here.

Andrew Thurston contributed to this story.