When he was young, Jason Arday, now 37, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and global development delay.
Arday didn’t speak until he was 11, and he used sign language to communicate. It wasn’t until he was 18 that he could read and write.
Less than 10 years ago, Arday was given a bleak prognosis: he would likely need to live in an assisted living facility.
But he refused to accept this fate and wrote on his mother’s bedroom wall that he would “work at Oxford or Cambridge” – one of his lifelong goals.
Now, he is the youngest black professor at the University of Cambridge, teaching the sociology of education.
Arday never imagined that he would become a professor, telling The Times that “if I was a betting person, the odds on it were so long. It’s just mad.” He had “no idea” what he was doing when he first started writing academic papers.
In his youth, Arday was inspired by Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and South Africa’s 1995 Rugby World Cup victory, vowing that he would “save the world” if he didn’t become a professional football or snooker player.
Arday never had a mentor to teach him academic writing, resulting in several rejections before he finally achieved his goal of teaching at the University of Cambridge. March 6th will be his first day.
According to the BBC, there are only five other black professors at the university.
He persevered in the face of adversity, obtaining two master’s degrees after earning a degree in physical education and education studies from the University of Surrey. In 2016, he earned a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University.
Arday said, “From that moment, I was determined and focused – I knew that this would be my goal. On reflection, this is what I meant to do.”
The scholar remembered his friend Sandro Sandri, who encouraged him in academia, saying, “I think we can take on the world and win.”
Arday published his first scholarly paper in 2018 and became one of the youngest professors in the entire UK when he secured a job at the University of Glasgow’s School of Education.
“My work focuses primarily on how we can open doors to more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and truly democratize higher education,” Arday told The Times.
He hopes that his ideas can lead the agenda for equal representation nationally and globally while he is at Cambridge.
Pro-vice-chancellor of education at the university, Professor Bhaskar Vira, described Arday as “an exceptional scholar” who will significantly contribute to Cambridge’s research and address the under-representation of people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly Black, Asian, and other minority ethnic communities.
Vira believes that Arday’s experiences illustrate the obstacles faced by many underrepresented groups in higher education, particularly at leading universities, and that Cambridge must create academic spaces where everyone feels they belong.
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