In Features today, David Myton is in conversation with  Glyn Davis, University of Melbourne VC for the past 13 years, who leaves in October.

“When I began academic life, I hoped one day to be a professor of political science who contributed to public debate – and that remains my aspiration,” he says.

Davis also reflects on the state of Australian higher education. “We have on average the largest public universities in the world and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. More diversity, more range, would be great,” he says, adding, “we have a moral responsibility to not be self-satisfied”.

And if leftist radicals are unduly influencing students, he says: “If it is true that universities feed students Marxist ideology, then it doesn’t seem to work … Graduates vote in much the same way as the broader community. They are more than capable of forming their own political judgements.”