Tim Auman
MIEA Trainer
Timothy L. Auman became the University Chaplain to Wake Forest in August of 2003. Tim has over two decades of experience in ministry in higher education, pastoral care, and work with religious, secular, and spiritual identity. At Wake Forest, Tim aims to build relationships amidst difference, and to cultivate healthy contemplative and mindful practices for the transformation of self and world. He previously served as the United Methodist Ecumenical Campus Minister at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and as a pastor of two United Methodist congregations.
Tim created the MindfulWake program at Wake Forest in January of 2017. He began his mindfulness practice in 1985 as a way to reduce stress and credits mindfulness as key to his emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Tim practices in the Plum Village Tradition of Engaged Buddhism and will be ordained into the Order of Interbeing in April of 2020. He practices with the Planting Seeds Sangha of Chapel Hill and the Winston-Salem Community of Mindful Living.
Within a few months of learning about MIEA, Tim knew that he wanted to share this practice with his students. That would become an important part of his life’s work at Wake Forest. Eventually, faculty and staff started to ask Tim to teach them what he was discovering. They wanted to share the practice of mindfulness, just as Tim did. But as demand increased, Tim stumbled upon the idea of becoming a MIEA Trainer. A crazy idea at first, but being a teacher and practitioner at heart, he decided to give it a go. Tim believes that when you’re teaching with joyfulness and playfulness, you’re not just talking mindfulness…you’re living mindfulness.