Vice-chancellor professor John Dewar was in town yesterday to meet with staff at the Bendigo campus and discuss future directions for the education provider.

“This is the first of what will become a regular series of visits to the campus,” he said.

“I’m here to meet staff, to talk to our regional advisory board and to meet some members of the local community. I’m covering a whole range of internal and external issues today and I will be back probably once every two months.

“I’d like to get here about six times a year at least.”

Mr Dewar said Bendigo was a very important campus to La Trobe University.

“We want to grow,” he said. “We’re aiming for about 5500 students by 2014.

“We expect to get past the 5000 mark this year for the first time, actually, so that will be a cause for celebration.

Mr Dewar said La Trobe University was the largest provider of higher education in regional Victoria.

He said 28.8 per cent of all Victorian regional students were enrolled at one of La Trobe University’s regional campuses in 2010.

“Having a campus in Bendigo means that students in the region have the opportunity to access a globally-recognised university as we have consistently been ranked in the top 500 universities worldwide by the highly respected Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings,” he said.