The entire Vanderbilt University community is getting ready to celebrate the grit of Garcia, a native of the Dominican  Republic, who continued seeking intellectual and spiritual growth after the accident left  him a quadriplegic.

 Garcia will be presented with a doctorate in Spanish American Literature and Latino Studies during  commencement ceremonies May 14 at the University. 

 "It's been an extraordinary journey," Garcia said. "I can't imagine having completed such a milestone  anywhere other than Vanderbilt."

 Garcia's dissertation on the writer Jesus Colon was written using a voice-operated computer program. He lost work days when circumstances such as a cold altered his voice, and had to spell out each word  of large amounts of the more than 300-page manuscript. He recruited family members and friends to  type parts of the dissertation.

 He did the work at his home in Apalachin. The dissertation defense was accomplished with video  conferencing between Vanderbilt and Binghamton University.

 "Doing a Ph.D. is difficult enough, but for someone who is only able to move his neck, and maybe slightly his arm - it's unprecedented," said William Luis, professor of Spanish at Vanderbilt and Garcia's  friend and mentor. "It's a celebration for people with disabilities - and people who don't have  disabilities - helping us to learn to strive to accomplish as much as we can."

 Luis was asked to bring one graduate student with him from Binghamton when he began teaching at  Vanderbilt in 1991. As an undergraduate at Binghamton, Garcia had taken a challenging course taught by Luis and outpaced most of the graduate students in the class.

 "I noticed something special in him," Luis said, "about his intellectual curiosity, his determination, his  willingness to work."

 Garcia was on the verge of graduating from Vanderbilt and had accepted a teaching job at Millsaps  College in Jackson, Miss., when the accident occurred on Memorial Day in 1996 while he was driving from  Jackson to Dallas.

 Vanderbilt officials, urged on by Luis, arranged his transfer from a Jackson hospital to Vanderbilt. Much of his subsequent medical bills and housing costs were absorbed by the University. He eventually made a triumphant return to the classroom as an instructor.

 "The mentor-protégé relationship I've had with William Luis has been a key to my life," Garcia said. "After  my accident, he didn't quit on me. That gave me strength."

 Getting back to his dissertation was something that "gave me some continuity with my former life,"  Garcia said. It is titled "Between Myth, Race, and Marginality: Jesus Colon and the Afro-Latino  Condition."

 "He does a marvelous analysis," Luis said. "One of the most fascinating chapters for me is the one where he argues that Colon was a very religious man despite being a proclaimed socialist. He reads the sketches in Colon's A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches as corresponding to the beads on  the rosary. That's totally original thinking on Colon."

 Garcia is quick to credit those who helped him along the way: Luis, his family, God, health care workers and the Vanderbilt community. He's unsure about his future, but has ambitions to teach, do more  research and publish a book on Colon.

 "I'm the kind of person who sees reality; I don't try to fool myself," Garcia said. "The first thing people see is my big wheelchair, and sometimes they don't pay attention to what's in my mind and heart. 

 "But there's more than one way of moving in the world, and I think I've learned about that."