By Hank McIntire
Adam Smith, Wood Research Assistant at UVU's Center for Constitutional Studies.
Sitting at his Nintendo Wii at home in Provo, Utah, Adam Smith was very good at Super Mario, Minecraft, and Legend of Zelda. After graduating from Timpview High School, he saw himself majoring in computer science and becoming a developer. He liked being on the business end of the joystick and was confident he could crack open the black box and level up the experience for other users.
But Adam’s first semester at UVU in the fall of 2021 turned into a game-changer. He enrolled in Comparative Constitutionalism, a political-science course taught via Zoom by Dr. Grace Mallon, a visiting assistant professor from Oxford University.
“I fell in love with the study of political theory in that class,” Adam recalled. “It was very interesting to look at different kinds of legal institutions. And I was proud of the final paper I wrote comparing constitutions from Kosovo, Mongolia, and Syria and how they overcame their totalitarian pasts.”
Adam continued taking similar courses and chose to major in political science with an emphasis in philosophy and public law. “I want to go on to graduate school and study political theory,” he explained. “I want to bring political ethics to solving problems.”
One problem in society that hit home for Adam when he was young was watching his dad, a security-software engineer, constantly putting in lots of extra hours at work to meet deadlines—even sleeping at the office—and not getting compensated for the overtime.
“A lot of workers are mistreated, overworked, and underpaid in our country,” Adam said. “State and federal minimum wages are not livable in any capacity. To get by, people have to have multiple jobs. There are so many inequalities in the labor movement and with labor rights. I want there to be dignity in work.”
It was in Mallon’s class that Adam first heard about the Center for Constitutional Studies (CCS) when executive director Scott Paul came to recruit research assistants to work on the Quill Project, a joint effort between CCS and Oxford University, to document and model the process of crafting state constitutions in the U.S.
At the time Adam wasn’t able to pursue that opportunity, but he heard about it again from a fellow student in a philosophy class and decided to apply in early 2023, about the same time he solidified his plans to go to graduate school and eventually return to UVU as a professor in political science.
As a Wood Research Assistant—the position funded by donors Angela and Bryan Wood in honor of their late son, Eric Zachary Wood—Adam currently collaborates in researching the Minnesota state constitutional convention of 1857.
Interestingly, there was so much bitterness between Minnesota Democratic and Republican delegates at the time that they were unwilling to meet in the same room. They drafted separate constitutions, which were reconciled into one version by a committee of five representatives from each party. Two identical copies were printed, one on white paper, and one on blue paper, which the Republicans and Democrats signed separately, refusing to have their signatures appear together on a single document.
“This was an extreme example of political disagreement,” said Adam. “They refused to meet with each other, and there were even incidents of caning. It wasn’t exactly civil discourse.”
“Unlike the Minnesota delegates, we have great collaboration among faculty, students, and editors at Oxford as we model this constitution,” said Adam. “Looking at these documents has been really cool.”
“Working on the Quill Project creates an intellectually stimulating environment for me,” he continued. “Engaging with these historical documents gives me a sense of the nitty-gritty of politics, and documenting this deliberative process will be useful in studying political theory at graduate school.”
Adam has his eye on the Midwest or the UK in applying to master’s and Ph.D. programs. He got a taste of the Great Lakes on a 2023 research trip to the Illinois and Wisconsin state archives, and he spent time at Oxford for a study-abroad course in Summer 2024. He liked what he saw in both areas.
“But I would love to come back to UVU to write, research, and teach,” said Adam. “I appreciate the open-enrollment policy of the school. Having a public institution is really important.”
In his studies and at work, Adam has come to appreciate the Founders of our nation. When asked about which one he would like to meet and talk to, without hesitation he points to Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense.
“Paine had to convince patriots they had already been fighting a revolution for a year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence” he said. “If I could talk to him, I would ask him what he thinks of America today. Would he rather that we had gone a different way? I’d like to know.”
Adam also appreciates the uniqueness of each individual on the CCS team. “It’s a diverse array of people, backgrounds, and perspectives on life.” He knows a little about seeing things in ways that others don’t, being diagnosed on the autism spectrum after he started at the Center in 2023.
He has been open about this still-fresh realization in his life. “I’m able to connect things in different ways from most people, seeing relationships where others haven’t noticed them,” said Adam. “It makes me who I am, and people have been supportive.”
Adam still loves Legend of Zelda and plays it passionately. “Tricks and glitches add new and unique ways to overcome obstacles and requires careful execution to succeed. It’s the same with the problems we deal with today,” he said.
“Politics today are all over the place,” Adam added. “We need to learn how to sit down and talk with each other, have some humility. That’s the only way to have productive political discourse.”
