18 May 2026
Dear ANU staff and students,
I’m writing to keep you updated about the selection process for our new Chancellor.
You will recall that we are proceeding with this process pursuant to a voluntary undertaking that the ANU has made with our regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Authority (TEQSA). The undertaking was made as a major aspect of the Council ’s determination to significantly improve confidence in the quality of governance
of the ANU.
Key aspects of our voluntary undertaking are that there be substantial and clear independence in both the chair and the majority of the membership of the selection panel, which will recommend the next Chancellor to the University Council.
The actual appointment decision remains one for the Council itself, pursuant to section 32 of the Australian National University Act 1991.
Chair of the selection committee
To this end, as has already been announced, the six-person selection panel is being chaired by Professor Peter Coaldrake AO, who has had a distinguished public and academic career, including as Vice-Chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology from 2003 to 2017. He has also been the chair of Universities Australia, amongst many other roles.
Over the last two weeks, Professor Coaldrake has spent four full days on the ANU campus and has directly met and engaged with well over 400 of our people. These have included academic and professional staff, various leaders of the University, representatives of both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and members of the ANU Governance Project group.
Other selection committee members
Both myself and ANU Council member Professor Juliana Ng are members of the committee.
In addition, it has now been agreed that Mr Tom Calma AO, Ms Elizabeth Broderick AO, and Professor Leanne Holt will serve on the committee.
Tom Calma is a celebrated Australian and First Nations leader and is a former Chancellor of the University of Canberra. He holds honorary doctorates from a number of Australian universities and was the Senior Australian of the Year in 2023. While he was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, he prepared the 2004 Social Justice Report, which was the catalyst for the Close the Gap campaign.
Elizabeth Broderick is also a distinguished Australian leader. She is a lawyer by background and was the Sex Discrimination Commissioner for eight years from 2007.
In 2017 she was appointed by the United Nations as a Special Rapporteur for the working group on discrimination against women and girls. She has undertaken many reviews and activities across the Australian university sector, and her current portfolio of activities includes appointment as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney.
Professor Leanne Holt is a Worimi/Biripi woman from the mid-coast of New South Wales. She is the inaugural Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous at UNSW. Contributing to Indigenous higher education for over 25 years she was previously the inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy at Macquarie University, and prior to this, the co-Director of the Wollotuka Institute at the University of Newcastle.
Colleagues, I believe that the proposed Panel is a highly credentialed, experienced, and credible group, with very detailed and relevant knowledge of the university sector, and of contemporary governance issues and challenges. The Panel also includes several members with deep knowledge of Canberra as the national capital, and the ANU in particular.
Further updates
I will keep you updated about the panel ’s work over coming weeks.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Andrew Metcalfe AO
Acting Chancellor (the Interim Chancellor, Dr Larry Marshall, is presently overseas)
