The vice-chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) has tendered her resignation after a tumultuous two years at the institution, marked by redundancies, proposed course closures, and allegations of a toxic work culture.
Chancellor Julie Bishop confirmed Prof Genevieve Bell had resigned on Thursday morning. Multiple sources said Bell advised the council of her decision on Wednesday evening, with Provost Rebekah Brown to be interim vice chancellor until a replacement is found.
Bell said she would return to ANU’s School of Cybernetics as a distinguished professor after taking a period of study leave, adding it was “not an easy decision” to make and being the university’s 13th vice-chancellor had been an “extraordinary privilege and also a heavy responsibility”.
“I believe firmly in our delivering on our national mission … and know that doing this requires a solid financial, cultural and operational foundation,” she said in the Thursday statement.
“Achieving such a foundation has been difficult and this has been a very hard time for our community … I very much want to see the ANU thrive into the future and for it to continue to be a remarkable place and I don’t want to stand in the way of that.”
Pressure was mounting for Bell to exit after five of the six college deans advised the council and chancellor that they no longer had confidence in her leadership, sources confirmed.
Last week, Bishop held a full day of meetings on campus with deans, council members and members of the union, sources told Guardian Australia.
She returned to campus on Wednesday to meet with members of the ANU governance project, a group of academics and staff who formed this year amid a growing “crisis of confidence” in leadership at the university, and again met with members of the union on Thursday morning.
It followed the release of a scathing report by the governance project which found 96% of around 600 respondents believed ANU’s governance was not fit for purpose and should be reformed.
Bishop said she would be “encouraging council to engage in open and constructive dialogue with the group on the proposed recommendations”.
“On behalf of the ANU council, I thank distinguished Prof Bell for her service as vice-chancellor and president.”
ANU’s governance has come under increased scrutiny over a drastic restructure that has led to at least 399 redundancies and the proposed disestablishment of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the centre for European studies, the humanities research centre and the ANU School of Music.
Around 100 staff are still facing the axe as part of the Renew ANU process, the National Tertiary Education Union (Nteu) estimates.
An investigation into ANU by the The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) is ongoing after “significant concerns” were raised by Jason Clare in a rare commonwealth intervention into university governance in June.
ANU has since released its self assurance report and cover letter for Teqsa, and will undertake its own investigation into its council and senior leadership team after a prominent academic alleged at a Senate inquiry last month that she was “bullied into near suicide” while serving on ANU’s university council and suffered a miscarriage in the weeks after two distressing meetings with Bishop.
The notice to Teqsa revealed there had been 627 psychosocial risk and hazard reports logged by staff in 2024 and 337 in the year to date.
“I reject any suggestion that I have engaged with council members, staff, students and observers in any way other than with respect, courtesy and civility,” Bishop said in August.
“The witness concerned has initiated grievance proceedings and it is not appropriate for me to comment further at this time.”
Independent senator David Pocock has consistently called for Bell and Bishop to step aside after Renew ANU began 12 months ago.
“While there is broad understanding of the need to put the ANU on a more sustainable financial footing, there have been serious failures of leadership and governance in the implementation of Renew ANU,” he said.
Pocock said he endorsed the council’s decision but further leadership changes were needed and any further forced redundancies must be stopped until there was “transparency” over ANU’s finances and “genuine consultation” with staff.
The Nteu ACT division secretary, Dr Lachlan Clohesy, welcomed the news but said Bell would not be “the last vice-chancellor to go” if other universities “fail to heed the lessons of what has gone wrong”.
“ANU leadership has taken an approach of moving fast and breaking things,” he said. “Unfortunately, too many of those things were people.”
A grassroots group of academics campaigning against the staff cuts, Our ANU, said the “issues at the heart of this crisis go beyond the vice chancellor”.
“This has been years in the making, the product of deep governance failures … Only genuine accountability will allow ANU to reset and rebuild.”
