BY DEGREES

After a successful career in network news for more than three decades, Harry Reasoner is about to receive the journalism degree that has eluded him for nearly 40 years. Reasoner, 66, attended Stanford and the University of Minnesota but never earned enough credits for a degree. Over the last few years, he’s worked on the needed credits by submitting about a half-dozen classes worth of independent study to Minnesota’s School of Journalism, and when he delivers the commencement speech for the university’s College of Liberal Arts on June 11, he will also get his degree. Like most college graduates, Reasoner hopes his degree will help him land a good job. “I assume if I want to retire and teach journalism, now I would qualify,” he says.