The University of Iowa will award four honorary doctorate degrees this academic year and among the recipients is NBC's Tom Brokaw, who began his college education at the school.

The other degree recipients include Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, noted pathologist and medical researcher Johan Hultin and former University of Iowa School of Music director Himie Voxman.

Voxman will get the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during the school's winter commencement in December. During the spring commencement next May, Brokaw and Hass will be awarded Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees and Hultin will get an Honorary Doctor of Science degree.

The University of Iowa reinstated the process of granting honorary degrees in 2006.

Brokaw, who began his journalism career in 1962 at KMTV in Omaha, joined NBC News in 1966 and anchored Today and later The NBC Nightly News.