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Dean
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"Dean" is a faculty position at Unseen University. This article refers to the person who was Dean during Moving Pictures and later books. Technically (at least on Roundworld) a Dean is an administrative officer in charge of a college, faculty, or division in a university; or an officer of a college or high school who counsels students and supervises the enforcement of rules. The Dean we have come to know from the later books in the Discworld canon is certainly a senior wizard: he is a member of the Faculty along with the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Senior Wrangler, the Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Librarian, the Bursar and Ponder Stibbons - all under the Archchancellorship of Mustrum Ridcully. However he doesn't seem to fulfil any of the other roles described above.
The "Dean of Pentacles" to give him his full title, is an incredibly obese man ("all of twenty stone" [280 pounds] in Interesting Times), who has the dubious distinction of having been granted the nickname "Two Chairs" by Ridcully. He is generally to be found in his study reading a grimoire or in the great hall eating. His job at UU as he, and everyone else, describes it is to sit around, sleep and eat incredibly big dinners. He also attends some of the functions that are held by guilds or clubs around the city on behalf of the University and partakes of other people's big dinners.
Seldom knowingly nice or kind, the Dean is an old-school wizard who believes that power should be used, and likes nothing better than throwing fireballs. The Dean enjoys himself immensely when he gets to use high-powered destructive spells, and is thus considered by Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson as too mentally unstable to be allowed to join the Specials at a time of crisis, when fireballs may have been useful, he was politely thanked for his interest and sent home. When he is allowed to fight, he progresses in a series of spinning leaps, shouting "Hut hut hut!" and "Yo!" a lot. He has even been known to tie a rag around his forehead and shout "Bonsai!" - appropriately, as it helps him in his art of Bush-I-do.
He is like a lightning conductor to any raw magic around, and Ridcully often just observes him whenever there is a clear occult event, as whatever is happening to people will be happening to the Dean at least twice as much. One of the best examples of this susceptibility to whatever occult or semi-magical occurrence is happening, as well as any fads or trends occurs in Soul Music. Who else but the Dean would paint his room black, create a quiff that could take out an eye and invent a cargo-cult motorbike when everyone else is only mildly rebelling?
Notes
- We don't know his actual name (and neither do the other senior wizards, apparently).
- He was not Dean during Sourcery: as he tells Ridcully in Interesting Times: "I don't know anything about that [unpleasantness with the Sourcerer]. I wasn't Dean at the time."
- In Moving Pictures, the Bursar says "The Dean looks like a man who's swallered a bed! [...] the body of the Dean is supremely appropriate to the purpose of sitting around all day and eating big heavy meals."
- In The Last Continent, the Dean refers to "the memo saying I've been appointed as Dean! That was years ago!"
