NDSU alumnus Robert Challey will be awarded an honorary doctorate during commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 15, at 4 p.m. at the Fargodome.
Challey has an exemplary and dedicated connection with his alma mater. In fact, the lobby of NDSU’s Festival Concert Hall is named the “Challey Atrium” in his honor.
A 1967 graduate, Challey studied business and the sciences. He was student body vice president, a member of Blue Key Honor Society, producer for the student musical “Oklahoma” and drum major and trombonist with the NDSU Gold Star Band.
Challey has enjoyed a highly successful career, becoming chair of the board of The Park Place Group, a real estate development and investment company in Walnut Creek, Calif. He also is a director and treasurer for the Smuin Ballet of San Francisco.
Challey was named to the NDSU Development Foundation board of trustees in 1981, and has served on numerous committees and advisory boards. He received an Alumni Achievement Award in 1986 and the Development Foundation’s Service Award in 2002. He was instrumental, as an advocate and financial sponsor, in bringing the Smuin Ballet to Fargo twice in recent years.
“Most recently, Bob and his wife, Sheila, pledged a donation to the Department of Music of $2.15 million, whose proceeds are used for scholarships for music majors, thereby assuring outstanding music students of support for their studies at NDSU,” wrote John Miller, director of the Division of Fine Arts, in a letter of nomination. “This gift is unquestionably the most significant financial contribution in the history of the music department at NDSU.”
Thomas Riley, dean of arts, humanities and social sciences, wrote, “Bob Challey is a man of keen insight and ability, and he has made, through his efforts here and at large, tremendous contributions to both the present and the future of the arts in a broad and tangible way.”
Miller also wrote, “As I mentioned in my remarks for the dedication of the Challey Atrium (in 2006), he is ‘in my top one’ of dedicated, talented representatives of NDSU.”
Challey and his wife, Sheila, and their three children live in Danville and Lake Tahoe, Calif.