Dean of Liberal Studies

The Dean of Liberal Studies was a Wizard at Unseen University that was mentioned in The Light Fantastic. His position in University hierarchy is unknown, however, given that the Dean mentioned in later books is the "Dean of Pentacles", it can be surmised that he is a lesser Dean. He was the only casualty after Archchancellor Weatherwax accidentally summoned the Luggage (it swallowed him) and it rampaged around the university. Ymper Trymon, the Archchancellor at the time, did not like him very much, and so presumably never replaced him. No future Dean of Liberal Studies is mentioned in later books.

"Liberal studies" is essentially another name for Liberal Arts- a curriculum that imparts general knowledge in a variety of subjects to students. Perhaps, then, his position at UU is to supervise the non-magical courses? Perhaps this is the reason that senior wizards like Trymon dislike him...

Annotation

British writer of farce and comedy Tom Sharpe is justly famous for the Wilt series of comic novels (which he began shortly after being deported from South Africa as an undesirable alien - he'd poked fun at a notoriously humourless regime once too often). Henry Wilt is a disillusioned Oxbridge graduate who, despite the rich and glittering promise normally available for those leaving Britain's premier university, ends up as Head of Department at a lowly tech college in a Fenlands town not far away from his alma mater. Married to the appalling Eva, a woman who comes across as a Sybil Ramkin bereft of any saving graces whatever, he suffers a mid-life crisis which affects all aspects of his professional life. His day job? Dean of Liberal Studies at the local tech, doomed with trying to promote culture to trainee plumbers, enhanced racial awareness to taxi drivers doing The Knowledge, and (by proxy) cutting-edge feminist thought to beauticians and hairdressers. He'd be just as not-at-home in Unseen University... en:Dekan der freien Studien