Special Graduate: When Chips Were Down, She Went to Work

After an automobile accident cut short her career as a professional dancer, Tai-Ping Patricia Gregurich was “going nuts” just sitting at home. She was paralyzed, but not weakened in spirit. She decided to go into counseling, so others could lean on her.

Last month, Gregurich became the first graduate of a 10-year-old program at Los Angeles City College for disabled people who are unable to get to campus on a regular basis. It took her eight years--instead of the normal two years--to earn her associate of arts degree in psychology.

The program, called Project Homebound, allows disabled persons confined to their homes to take regular college classes by using a special telephone hookup to a classroom at LACC.

But the number of classes is limited and many of the hundreds of students who have joined the program grow discouraged and drop out.

For the wheelchair-bound Gregurich, college was an afterthought. Since she was 17, she had traveled the country earning her living as a dancer in supper clubs and small theaters. “That’s all I ever wanted to do, was dance,” she said.

And that was practically all she ever did, until the accident in Pueblo, Colo., destroyed her career, and almost her life.

At first she was paralyzed from the neck down, but after several operations and intense therapy, she regained movement in her upper body and taught herself to use her hands.

It is that tenacious attitude that enabled Gregurich to spend eight years earning her degree. Chad Woo, assistant dean at the college who developed Project Homebound, said Gregurich’s perseverance is unusual among the homebound students.

“We are quite happy about our first graduate . . . ,” Woo said. “Instead of staying home . . . she got turned on to a college education because she had a chance.”

LACC has many disabled students who attend classes on campus. But others either are physically unable to attend classes or lack the money to pay for private transportation to and from campus.

Woo said he got the idea after working on an overseas educational program offered by LACC, in which U.S. soldiers took courses by telephone. In 1978, he received a $29,000 federal grant to start the program for disabled students.

Today, the program costs about $10,000 a year. Most of the money comes from federal grants and from the college. But Woo said he has had to reduce the number of classes because of the rising cost of operating the telephone network. He now is looking for corporate support.

More in Wings

Woo said some administrators feel he should discontinue the program because it has produced only one graduate. But Woo said there are six other students who are close to graduating.

On class days, Gregurich wheeled herself to the phone in her West Hollywood apartment and waited for the instructor to call. On a table near the kitchen sat a speaker phone through which she could talk to and hear the instructor and other members of the class as they spoke into microphones. Gregurich’s speaker phone left her hands free to take notes.

“You really feel like you are there,” Gregurich said. “You have to really pay attention because you never know when the teacher is going to call on you.”

Gregurich was responsible for all assignments. Occasionally, she took exams over the phone. At other times, students would bring exams to her home.

She said she earned mostly A’s and B’s. For a field study requirement, Gregurich taught once a week at the Town and Country Guest Home in Hollywood, a halfway house for the mentally ill.

Hopes to Do Counseling

She hopes to do more counseling there, but has no immediate plans to continue her formal education.

Born in West Philadelphia, Gregurich, who is Chinese-Portuguese by birth and carries her husband’s Czech name, started ballet lessons when she was 9. She said she moved to California and began working through an agency that got her jobs “on the supper club circuit” all over the country. “Whatever type dances they needed, I would choreograph a number and I got that job,” she said.

She was in Colorado, returning from an engagement early one morning, when she lost control of her car. Her spinal cord was severed in the crash.

After returning to California, she could not get used to sitting around the house. When her social worker told her about the LACC program, she eagerly applied.

Money Is Obstacle

Gregurich said she knows she will never be able to dance as she used to, but does believe she will walk again. She said her biggest obstacle is money, citing one clinic in Los Angeles that offers intense therapy for $500 a day.

“You got to be rich to walk,” she said.

In the meantime, Gregurich continues her interest in the arts as a member of the Performing Arts Theater of the Handicapped and the Virgil Frye Actor’s Workshop in Los Angeles.

She also practices Buddhism, taking time out for daily chants. She said the religion reinforces her belief that she must answer for her own achievements--and setbacks--in life.

“All I can do now is take responsibility for my daily life,” she said. “I believe the way things (are going) today, I have something to say about it.”