Honorary Degrees of Retiring Faculty
Dan Coakley Sparks, Associate Professor of Music, 1993
"Dan Coakley Sparks, you have served the Conservatory for thirty years as teacher and performer, as well as host to new faculty, and as chef extraordinaire.
From your first appointment as instructor of clarinet and admissions counselor for the conservatory, you have since taught clarinet, music history and theory, and have made a significant contribution to faculty chamber music performance. In the past fifteen years, you have collaborated with some thirty-five of your colleagues in thirteen Clarinet and Friends converts and performances with the Trio Laurentiano. Your enthusiasm for searching out and performing new literature--an enthusiasm that took you to London to study with Gervase de Peyer and to Austria to the Classical Musical Seminar at Eisenstadt--has provided students with unusual opportunities to hear seldom-performed works.
Beyond the conservatory, your participation in the Fox Valley Symphony as principal clarinet, your directorship of the music at the First United Methodist Church, and your willingness to take part in many other community related musical endeavors, have all enriched the cultural life of the area.
Your colleagues will miss the gentle warmth of the Kentucky gentleman, but wish you the delights of retirement: travel, continuing to build your magnificent recording collection, Hughes chocolates, and, we hope, participation with Clarinet's Friends as you continue to practice the licorice stick.
By the authority vested in me, I now confer upon you the degree of Master of Arts, ad eundem, and admit you to its rights, its privileges, and its obligations."