Graduating From UCLA the Hard Way
‘I really believe I have a purpose in life--to use my disability to encourage other people to live their lives out as best as they can.’--Diane DeVries
When the moment of graduation came and UCLA’s class of 1987 was asked to stand, Diane DeVries sat anchored to the wheelchair that has been her means of transportation since childhood.
But for a legless, armless woman who has spent her life extending herself to overcome obstacles, standing with her classmates hardly seemed necessary.
Along with 5,000 other undergraduates and 2,500 graduate students, DeVries celebrated her new status as a college-educated woman Sunday at UCLA’s Drake Stadium. Surrounded by students who topped their black mortarboards with pink flamingos, winking lights and moose antlers, DeVries steered a more traditional course, flipping the white tassel of her mortarboard with the help of a fellow sociology major.
“This is real,” she marveled. “I can’t believe it’s finally over.”
Graduate School
DeVries, 37, handicapped since birth, took seven years to obtain her bachelor’s degree and plans to spend another two pursuing a master’s degree in sociology. Her ultimate goal is to work with the terminally ill.
“I really believe I have a purpose in life--to use my disability to encourage other people to live their lives out as best as they can,” she said.
It has not always been easy to maintain that attitude. She was forced to drop out of college because of painful operations that required long months of recovery. When she did attend, DeVries often found herself hampered by the lack of facilities for the handicapped. Friends sometimes had to carry her up several flights of stairs to get her to class.
“What she’s accomplished is just above and beyond what any of us have to go through,” said Stacy Bunnage, 22, a fellow sociology major. “When she wanted attention, I would raise my hand for her in class. And when I wanted attention, she would yell, ‘Yo,’ until she got the professor’s attention. If you help her out, she wants to do the same for you.”
Born in 1950 in Denison, Tex., DeVries was later told by her mother that the doctor in the delivery room fainted when he saw her emerge. Three years later, the family moved to Los Angeles, where doctors at UCLA pioneered in work with children afflicted with birth defects. Most of her teen-age years were spent at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Long Beach, where she was taught to contend with her handicaps.
Her family had already started her in that direction. “When I was a child, my family treated me as if I was no different from anyone else,” she said.
Instead of allowing herself to be fed, she ate with curving, long-stemmed forks and spoons crafted by her father. Instead of allowing fellow students to take notes for her, she learned how to wield a pencil, writing on a lap desk also built by her father.
DeVries graduated from high school in 1968, and began taking courses at Long Beach City College. Her counselors suggested that she try a major university. “They kept saying my grades were too good for where I was,” she said. “I didn’t believe them at first.”
After dropping out, her early 1970s were spent “partying and drinking.” Her crowd of friends included Jim DeVries, an ex-Marine who fought in Vietnam and drank hard enough to end up briefly on Long Beach’s mission district. DeVries became her attendant, helping to take her where she could not go by wheelchair. They married in 1978.
DeVries tried college again in 1977 at UCLA. At the time, UCLA was an obstacle course for the handicapped, with few curb-side ramps and old buildings equipped with elevators that often broke down. DeVries transferred to Berkeley, but quit after a year, discouraged in part by a recurring need for surgery. When her health improved, DeVries returned to UCLA.
This time, access for the handicapped had improved. But there were still deficiencies, prompting DeVries to join other disabled students in a protest march last June. They formed a picket line of wheelchairs, singing “We Shall Overcome” and chanting “We want fair treatment!” The college administration appointed DeVries to serve on a committee that won new concessions for disabled students.
On Sunday, during graduation ceremonies, Donnelly and other friends gathered around DeVries, who sat in her wheelchair, her torso draped in the traditional black robe. She watched the proceedings silently until the moment when her class was asked to stand.
As undergraduates flipped the tassels on their mortarboards and flung their caps into the air, Stacy Bunnage slipped DeVries’ white tassel from the right side of her mortarboard to the left side. This time, with a little help from a friend, Diane DeVries had cleared another obstacle.
