Emma Johnston has begun her tenure as the University of Melbourne’s 21st Vice Chancellor, becoming the first woman to hold the role.

Johnson was appointed in September 2024, following the announcement that Duncan Maskell would prematurely end his second five-year term as Vice Chancellor in March 2025. 

Notice of Maskell’s resignation came on 29 April 2024, four days into the Gaza Solidarity Encampment by Unimelb for Palestine on the Parkville campus’s South Lawn.

The Gaza Solidarity Encampment was the most high-profile action of an ongoing protest movement by staff and students calling upon the  University to disclose and divest from their partnerships with weapons manufacturing companies 

Maskell’s term was marred by controversy. Appointed in 2018 to replace outgoing Vice Chancellor Glyn Davis, Maskell oversaw widespread staff redundancies and underpayment to the tune of $45 million.

His tenure saw unprecedented industrial action. In what would become the longest strike action in Australian higher education history, hundreds of University staff conducted week-long protected strikes in August and October of 2023.

As Vice Chancellor, Maskell came under frequent fire from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which cited his $1.5 million annual salary and University-owned $7.1 million Parkville mansion as evidence of the intense inequality rife in the higher-education sector.

While Maskell was educated at the  University of Cambridge, Emma Johnston grew up in Melbourne and completed both her undergraduate and doctorate in ecology at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1998 and 2002, respectively. 

In 1995, Johnston was elected President of the Melbourne University Student Union. Her ticket, Left Focus, was composed of left-aligned students organised primarily to campaign against voluntary student unionism and up-front HECS fees.

Although Voluntary Student Unionism would be forestalled  during  Johnston’s incumbency, its eventual implementation in 2006 has had wide-reaching ramifications for Australian tertiary students and student unions, and their capacity for both political organisation and the provision of essential student services.

At the time of her appointment as Vice Chancellor at the University of Melbourne, Johnson had been serving as the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney, a position she had held since July 2022. 

In that role, Johnston oversaw and signed the renewal of the University of Sydney’s partnership with  the French arms manufacturer Thales, the world’s eighth largest arms manufacturer. 

This partnership was established in 2017 and involved Thales funding research doctorates and industry placement programs throughout the The University of Sydney’s Faculty of Engineering. Johnston’s renewal of the partnership in late 2022 extended Thales-directed research into weapons systems and national security.

The University of Sydney and Thales’ partnership has attracted continued criticism from staff and students who oppose the University’s ’ involvement in militarism . They argue Thales is complicit in war crimes and the underpayment of its 3,700 Australian employees.

Speaking to the University of Sydney’s student newspaper Honi Soit in 2022, then University of Sydney Union Education Officers Yasmine Johnson and Ishbel Dunsmore opposed the partnership, arguing that higher education in Australia had become “increasingly geared towards Australian militarism and industry.”

As the University of Melbourne’s Vice Chancellor, Johnson can expect to encounter many of the same issues as her predecessor, including disputes with the NTEU, calls for divestment from pro-Palestine staff and students, the proposed caps to international student enrollments, and controversies regarding her salary.

The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the governance structures and salary practices within the Australian higher education sector. The inquiry comes amidst reports from the Fair Work Ombudsman and NTEU which have found ‘entrenched non-compliance’ and ‘poor governance’ within the higher education sector, and university executive salaries which far outstrip those received by state premiers and the prime minister. 

While the NTEU’s 2023 industrial action eventually resulted in the approval of a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) in 2024, many staff predict further redundancies if the federal government’s caps on international student enrollments are legislated.

Labor’s proposed policy would introduce a national overall cap of 270,000 annual new enrollments in a sector where international student fees represent the second largest source of income for Australian universities – accounting for 30% of their funding. 

Although the legislation is currently stalled in parliament by the Coalition, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has indicated that he would be in support of  similar caps were his party to form government in 2025. 

Under the caps, the University of Melbourne’s international student intake would see a reduction of 18%, translating to a revenue loss of $85 million.

Pro-Palestine students and staff further demand divestment from weapons manufacturing as well as the academic and cultural boycott of Israeli universities, the most prominent of which is the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose Mt Scopus campus is, according to international law, located on illegally occupied Palestinian territory. 

The University currently maintains ties with weapons manufacturers including Rosebank Engineering, IBM, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo, and Northrop Gruman.

How Johnston navigates these challenges will inevitably define the longevity and legacy of her tenure as Vice Chancellor of Australia’s wealthiest university.