Dr. Tulla Lightfoot is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, the Instituto Allende and Columbia University, Teacher's College. She was a substitute teacher in the Hartford, Connecticut public school system before becoming a high school art teacher at Shanti High School, also in Hartford, CT. She also ran an art-based after school program for disadvantaged, inner city youth. Tulla then went on to graduate school and taught studio and Art Education courses at Columbia University, Central Connecticut State College, and the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse. She left college teaching to devote time to her own artwork, but could not stay out of the classroom. Instead, she wound up substitute teaching for the Broward School District in the State of Florida and teaching online and onsite for the University of Phoenix. Now she's back and doing what she loves, here at UNCP.

She is happy to be away from the cold of Wisconsin and the heat of South Florida, and loves the climate and the people of North Carolina. Her motto is: If you want to change someone's life-become a teacher. If you want to change a hundred lives-teach a teacher.