John Dewar (academic)

John Kinley Dewar AO (born 9 September 1959) is an Australian academic. He is the current vice-chancellor of La Trobe University.^[1]

Education[]

He was educated at Abingdon School^[2] and Hertford College, Oxford.^[3]

Career[]

Dewar is an internationally known family law specialist. He was a member of the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Family Law Pathways Advisory Group from 2000 to 2001 and a former member and chair of the from 1998 to 2004.^[4]

Before working at Griffith University, Dewar taught at the universities of Lancaster and Warwick in the United Kingdom and was a fellow and tutor in law at Hertford College, Oxford. He was Head of Education and Training for Allen & Overy (London) from 1988-90^[5]

Griffith University[]

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).

University of Melbourne[]

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]

La Trobe University[]

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]

See also[]

• List of Old Abingdonians

References[]