Student Body Secretary Adam Jutha only has his learner’s permit.
However, he has seen more of the world than most adults.
Jutha, a Morehead-Cain scholar from Toronto, took a gap year before coming to UNC in 2009. During that time he went to Angola, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in addition to taking a leisure trip to Alaska.
“I love East Africa,” he says. “The community there puts Americans to shame. Families there are so connected.
“I am so inspired by how much potential the people have, and how much work I could contribute.”
Jutha says he hopes to eventually work abroad in either East Africa or Central Asia after he secures his master’s degree.
He says that he is inspired to help others because he feels blessed to have been given so much in his own life.
He cites his family as being one of the major influences in his life.
“I only have one brother,” Jutha says, “but my four cousins feel like siblings. We are all so close.”
Growing up, all of his aunts and uncles on his mother’s side lived within a block of his house.
“It was definitely hard to leave them all behind and go to UNC,” Jutha says. “It was easier to know, though, that they were all moving on to other things, too.”
Jutha’s brother is a sophomore at Tufts University, and he has cousins in Seattle and New York, among other places.
Jutha says he decided go south for college because he wanted the true college experience.
“If you have a college football game in Toronto, a couple hundred people will show up,” Jutha says. “If you have a college football game at UNC, there will be 66,000 people.”
In addition, Jutha says he likes the friendlier atmosphere of the South.
“If you waved at someone on the subway in Toronto,” he says, “they would stare you down. Here, though, everyone is so nice.”
Despite being so far away from home (the trip to Toronto takes fourteen hours), Jutha adds that he had no problem making friends at UNC.
He met many of his best friends today at the new student orientation for international students and at his freshman residence hall – Ehringhaus.
“People always say that your high school friends will be your friends forever, and college friendships only last four years,” Jutha says, “but I believe I will be friends with my college friends forever.”
Relationships and community are two values that Jutha prizes above all others, and they shape his every decision.
Jutha defines community as knowing you have people to turn to no matter what.
“Everyone should feel that they have a friend to talk to in any situation,” he adds.
It is this commitment to creating community for others at UNC that led Jutha to seek his appointment to student body secretary.
“I had been involved with student government since freshman year,” Jutha says. “I chose to apply for the position of student body secretary to serve as a communication liaison.”
Every administration seeks to increase communication between student government and the students it serves, he says, but he felt that Mary Cooper’s administration was dedicated to opening up dialogue in a new way.
“I want the Carolina community to really come together and share their thoughts and opinions,” Jutha says.
“I don’t want to leave anything on the table. I want to give all that I can.”
Source: All photos provided by Adam Jutha