John Dewar (academic)

Dewar moved from the United Kingdom in 1995 to take up a professorial position in the Griffith Law School,[6] where he eventually became the Dean of the Griffith Law School from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 to 2005, he was the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and Law and then became deputy vice-chancellor (academic).

Dewar moved to the University of Melbourne in April 2009, becoming the deputy vice-chancellor (global relations).[7] In September that year, he was appointed Provost of the University of Melbourne, a role similar to his previous one at Griffith University.[8] The role's focus was "on refining the Melbourne Model and ensuring successful second phase implementation of the University’s graduate programs in 2011".[9]

Dewar became the sixth vice-chancellor of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, in January 2012.[10] On arrival, he declared that his goal was to ensure that La Trobe be "recognised as the natural alternative to Victoria's two Group of Eight universities, with a unique appeal other universities can't offer".[11]

In 2012, Dewar announced a plan to cut 500 subjects and 41 jobs.[12] Dewar ran from student protestors frustrated with his plan to cut university subjects and job and escaped via a network of tunnels under the university.[13] In 2014, Dewar announced that 350 staff would be sacked without any voluntary redundancies.[14] Dewar became the throughout 2020 following the exposure of an initiative to shut down La Trobe University's Student Union.[15] In a bid to reduce costs in 2020, Dewar asked staff to accept voluntary pay cuts and reduce hours.[16] Humanities and the arts became the subject of Dewar's cuts in November 2020, with Dewar informing staff that the subjects were no longer financially viable.[17]

In 2021, Dewar unveiled to close the school of molecular science (which would result in around 200 staff redundancies) in a bid to cut costs.[18]