Jason Arday: my success means nothing unless it raises others up

The journey to becoming the youngest ever black professor at the University of Cambridge was not an easy one for Jason Arday, including a developmental disorder which meant he was unable to speak until he was 11.

But, speaking at Times Higher Education’s THE Campus Live conference, Professor Arday said standing on this “vista” will be wasted unless he is able to help others from under-represented backgrounds along the way.

The 39-year-old said his first year or so as professor of sociology of education at Cambridge had been a “whirlwind”, particularly the global media attention that has come from being an academic that came from a less traditional route.

He went from being diagnosed, at the age of three, with a form of autism spectrum disorder which meant he was unable to speak until he was 11, or to read or write until he was 18 – to becoming the youngest black professor at Cambridge, and one of the youngest black professors of all.

But despite his setbacks, Professor Arday said he had been fortunate in many ways – that his “paralysis of speed was a blessing”, that he had been blessed by a “perfect storm” of wider societal factors, and that he had a number of invaluable mentors outside of academia.

He said this was in contrast to a large number of exceptional black academics who had not achieved as much success – something he is hoping to help change.

“Sitting and standing on a vista on your own is actually a pretty useless endeavour if you’ve got no-one to share it with, and part of my work is really to bring as many people on and democratise these spaces as much as possible,” he told delegates in Birmingham.

Professor Arday said he had to rely on his own self-belief and hard work ethic to overcome the many barriers that someone like him faces in academia – including a lack of mentorship towards someone who was not a “polished diamond”.

“It is quite exclusionary, it’s very elitist and it reproduces the same types of people,” he said. “In terms of finding that mentorship or that guidance or someone with a guiding hand, a lot of people gravitate towards the horse that they believe will win.”

Part of the reason for the media spotlight on Dr Arday, who has previously worked at the University of Glasgow and the University of Durham, is because he remains one of very few black professors in the UK today.

He now aims to help others up to his position, to broaden the intake of faculty and to make the average academic less of a “caricature”.

“I want to be part of that vanguard that creates a blueprint for what black academics need to do and then hold people to account who are the ones providing those opportunities and providing those jobs to ensure that they’re doing the right things.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com