Service

While at the University of Colorado, my major service-related activity was my organizing with the United Campus Workers of Colorado – CWA Local 7799, the wall-to-wall union for workers at all University of Colorado campuses. Our union grew out of the Committee on Rights and Compensation, the independent graduate labor union at CU Boulder, which I also helped form in 2016. There is an incredible amount of work to make higher education and the world more just, and while my specific involvement will vary as I move around I intend to stay in the struggle.

More connected with my main philosophical interests, I’m doing work to bring attention to the unacceptable state of Big-Time College Sports. I've given public-facing talks on this topic through both our philosophy department, CU Boulder's athletics department, downtown in a mid-major city, and at the biannual international Play the Game summit hosted by the Danish Institute for Sport Studies. I’ve also written about the exploitation of college athletes for Boulder County’s local paper and CU Boulder's school paper.

For my work on the two above topics, CU Boulder’s Philosophy department awarded me the 2019 and 2020 Stahl Prize, “which recognizes a graduate student who has made a significant contribution toward bringing the discipline of philosophy to bear on some demanding and crucial human problem.”

Additionally, I’ve been a co-organizer for the Rocky Mountain Philosophy Conference (RMPC), CU Boulder's annual graduate student conference, and been a referee and commentator for both RMPC and CU Boulder's more prestigious Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress. In 2019 I was a columnist for the CU Independent, as I tried to bring more accessible argumentation to my campus community. And I'm always happy to bring my academic expertise to bear on important contemporary issues, as I had the chance to do ahead of the 2019 Super Bowl – where I talked on regional television and national radio about referees and fairness in sport – and the 2021 Olympic Games – where I talked on regional television about doping and coercion in sports with elite youth athletes.

My role as a philosopher doesn't end at the classroom or office doors, and that's the way I like it!