Alex Wolf-Root is an adjunct Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he completed his PhD in 2020. He specializes in philosophy of sport, though has wider applied ethical interests. He’s a proud founding member of United Campus Workers Colorado – CWA Local 7799. Twitter: @WolfmanHorsecow
What are you most proud of in your professional life?
Helping to found CU Boulder’s independent graduate labor union in 2016, and then in 2020 turning that into United Campus Workers Colorado, a union for all workers across the University of Colorado’s four campuses. Higher education has a host of problems, not least of all the exploitation of many of the workers who are the backbone of the teaching & research mission of our colleges and universities, and simply asking nicely doesn’t make things better. And while some might not think organizing your workplace is part of one’s professional life since we’re not paid directly for it, I’ll note that after years of stagnant graduate worker compensation, over four years of union organizing & mobilizing we increased pay for “graduate part-time instructors” (instructor of record title) 27.1%, with many other graduate worker appointments seeing similar increases. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but no one else is going to do that work for us.
More in line with where I think the question was going, I’m proud of creating CU Boulder’s Philosophy and Sports course. Sport is a huge part of our world, and for that reason alone it deserves critical study. Beyond that, many students love sport and so it’s relatively easy to introduce them to critical reasoning skills and philosophical issues through something that is so important to them. This semester we’ve filled five sections, largely with non-majors, so that’s something to think about if you’re trying to get more students to take philosophy classes at you school! (Don’t have anyone prepared to teach such a class? Don’t fret, just hire me!)
What are you working on right now?
Getting a more secure job! Higher education has decided that most classes should be taught by those in precarious employment conditions, and although I’m also doing my small part to try to change that, while I’m here I would like to have secure employment.
Research-wise, I’m largely working on issues around college athletics. I recently accepted an invitation to write a chapter for a book on College Sport and Ethics (eds. Chad Carlson and Shawn Klein) where I’ll be arguing that if we took claimed commitments about higher education seriously along with claimed values of sport, our intercollegiate landscape would look very different from the mass entertainment through exploitation of campus athletic workers we see today (at least the closer you get to the “Big-Time” programs). This builds off a chapter in Philosophy, Sport and the Pandemic (forthcoming, eds. Jeffrey Fry and Andrew Edgar) where I show how the decisions of the NCAA and its member institutions in Fall 2020 were “mask off” their collegiate model myth. Additionally, I’m working on a paper arguing that recent advances in college athletes’ name, image, and likeness rights, while good, don’t directly engage with the major issues at hand in college sport and, if we’re not careful, could actually have ugly consequences for college sport in part by making people think that the problems are solved.
I’m also working to organize my colleagues at the University of Colorado to fight for fair conditions and for a university that promotes the public good. Despite being built into our state constitution, CU pre-pandemic was getting only single-digit-percent of our budget from the state, leading to some very “Questionable Decisions” on how it operates. Additionally, UCW Colorado is part of a bigger Local we founded – CWA Local 7799 – which represents workers at two public hospitals and a public library system. We understand that our struggle is shared across sectors, and that the public good requires fighting together. Along with the much broader labor movement in Colorado, we’ll be fighting and winning collective bargaining rights for public workers through Colorado’s legislature, though of course workers can fight and win without CB rights, as for example we recently saw with non-TT faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville winning $9,000 in wage increases over two years of fighting.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Probably my 5,000m (14:50.22) or 10,000m (30:45.60) PB. Arguably my 10,000m is a touch better in raw terms, but 15-flat always felt like a meaningful barrier, so I think if I had to pick I’d go with the 5,000m. Then again, I twice ran 6:12 in the beer mile, before it was cool…
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
Coerced by Erin Hatton. She connects the conditions of prisoner laborers, welfare workers, college athletes, and graduate students (largely in the sciences) through their precarious and coerced conditions despite the vast differences in their overall situations. I recommend it.
Who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Batman?
While Spider-Man would have a witty quip that I just can’t match, I feel compelled to note that he uses a hyphen in his name regardless of who is under the mask. Anyways, I do appreciate you suggesting that Batman is a supervillain for hording all his inherited wealth to dress up as a bat rather than try to better the world through redistributing his wealth or doing pretty much anything else, Spider-Man would likely simply disarm Batman and leave him webbed up but otherwise unharmed. (An exception, of course, is that the Superior Spider-Man would absolutely destroy Batman.)
What’s your favorite quote?
“With Great Power There Must Also Come — Great Responsibility!”
Although the above Parker Principle (PP) is a cleaner slogan, if we want to guide our actions we mustn’t forget the general form of the Generalized Parker Principle (GPP): “With Some Amount of Power in a Given Domain There Must Also Come — A Commensurate Amount of Power in that Same Domain!”
What’s your top tip or advice for APA members reading this?
Organize your workplace. You are a worker, you have value, and no one is going to make things better unless you and your colleagues put in the work. And if you’re one of those rare TTT workers who does have a relatively comfortable job, be sure to consult the GPP.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
