Patricia Tillman received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at The University of Texas at Austin in 1976 where she studied painting and drawing, and her Masters in Fine Arts degree at The University of Oklahoma in 1978.  Her interest in sculpture grew from her activity as a painter in graduate school and she began exhibiting as a sculptor thereafter.  After widely exhibiting her sculpture in the southwest and teaching at various universities and colleges in Texas for many years, Patricia accepted a position at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.  From there she came to Trinity in 1995 where she received tenure in 2000.   Professor Tillman believes students are constantly bombarded with clichés in society by an increasingly sophisticated and available technology.  She feels that learning how to develop creative ideas, think critically and try new approaches is important to our way of life, especially since what is known today is so easily accessible.   The pursuit of manual skills and technical information can be time-intensive and very often so broad to address that no time is left in a course to consider how ideas can be generated.  For these reasons, she adheres to a teaching philosophy based in a balance between what is known and what can be discovered in a given subject area.