The departure of embattled Australian National University (ANU) vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell potentially raises concerns about political meddling in the leadership of what are supposed to be autonomous institutions, according to governance expert Hilary Winchester.
But it also raises questions about the capacity of governing councils to deal expeditiously with leadership crises.
Bell has stepped down after a torrid 11 months, beginning with the release of her plan to reduce the university’s salary bill by A$100 million (?49 million), as part of a A$250 million cost-cutting campaign known as “Renew ANU”.
She came under fire after the Australian Financial Review that she was presiding over “a culture of fear” and had warned anybody who leaked restructure details that she would “find you out and hunt you down”. The AFR that Bell had continued receiving payments from her former employer Intel after joining ANU in 2017, and after becoming vice-chancellor in 2024.
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Since then, the university leadership has endured an almost constant stream of allegations of bullying, bad governance, financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, misleading statements and dereliction of its obligation to provide teaching and research in the national interest.
Bell was hauled before a Senate estimates committee that?condemned her treatment of both Jewish students and pro-Palestinian protesters. The university has been investigated by the higher education regulator Teqsa and stared down an order to give the Senate reams of documents about its operations and governance.
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In early September, five of ANU’s six deans wrote to the council threatening to quit unless Bell did, the AFR. On 9 September, a group of 32 staff – mostly professors – reported near-universal levels of dissatisfaction with the leadership and demanded major changes to the university’s governance, transparency and underpinning legislation.
In a posted on the ANU website on 11 September, Bell said she was “officially tendering my resignation as vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, which will be accepted by the chancellor and council”.
The AFR reported that the council had voted to end Bell’s tenure during a special meeting on the evening of 10 September. Asked to clarify whether the council vote had prompted Bell’s resignation or vice-versa, the university had not provided a response by publication deadline.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has for months been calling for Bell and chancellor Julie Bishop to resign or be sacked. Greens’ higher education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi, a former academic, has also called for the pair to resign and for education minister Jason Clare to “intervene if needed”.
Canberra-based senator David Pocock, who has been fiercely critical of the ANU leadership since accusing it of misleading him in a Senate committee hearing, called for Bishop to step aside after a former staff-elected council member accused the chancellor of bullying.
A year ago, University of Sydney chancellor David Thodey and vice-chancellor Mark Scott also faced demands for their removal, including from then opposition leader Peter Dutton, over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Sarah Schwartz, a University of Melbourne law lecturer and executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, at the time that the “concerted campaign” against Scott “would set a really dangerous precedent for all universities and would essentially mean that universities are able to be politicised”.
Other Australian vice-chancellors forced out of their jobs following external pressure include the University of New England’s Brigid Heywood, who quit in 2022 after being charged with assault, and University of Queensland boss Paul Greenfield, who left amid a 2011 nepotism scandal over his daughter’s admission into a medical degree.
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Winchester, a higher education quality consultant who has held senior posts at five universities, said the ANU case was different in that there was no “clear misconduct”. She said Bell’s departure potentially set a precedent for vice-chancellors to be removed through political pressure rather than governing council mechanisms.
Winchester said public disquiet over vice-chancellors’ salaries, retrenchments at universities and underpayment of academics provided fertile ground for political intervention into university leadership issues. But she also questioned governing councils’ capacity to manage leadership issues internally, because many members had no direct experience of academia.
糖心Vlog asked whether Faruqi was concerned that she may have set a precedent for the removal of university leaders on populist grounds. Her office said she was overseas and unavailable for comment.
Pocock’s spokeswoman said it was “unhelpful” to compare Bell’s removal with the campaign against Scott. “This is about…amplifying and working on behalf of the community. He has had hundreds of emails. He gets stopped in the street constantly. We’ve just been on campus, and the relief is tangible.
“This is a very specific scenario to the national university, [which] gets a lot more commonwealth funding than any other institution, and whose leaders have really done a lot of damage.”
The NTEU said the ANU council was too slow to act against Bell. “Changing the vice-chancellor will not fix the ANU’s issues unless governance concerns are also addressed,” said divisional secretary Lachlan Clohesy. “The chancellor still faces serious allegations, and under her watch ANU is now subject to investigation by Teqsa and the fair work ombudsman.”
Pocock said the chancellor faced “serious bullying and workplace harassment allegations and has presided over a period that saw a significant decline in the university’s financial position and governance arrangements”.
Bishop told an 11 September meeting of ANU staff that she intended to complete her full term and would not step aside over the “untested and uncorroborated” bullying allegations, which she had been unaware of before they were lodged in an “open hearing…covered by parliamentary privilege”.
Bell says she plans to return to her previous role in ANU’s School of Cybernetics following some leave. Provost Rebekah Brown has taken over as interim vice-chancellor.
Asked whether the restructure would be “paused”, Brown said the issue would be given “very careful consideration”.
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