In times past, advancement within the faculty was the result of the wizards higher on the ladder dying. Some of the more ambitious wizards found that helping matters along was more expedient than waiting for Death to visit on a more natural time table. This was the rule until more recently when Mustrum Ridcully took the position of Archchancellor. Discovering that Ridcully was annoyingly difficult to kill, his juniors have settled in for the long wait.

Other members of the faculty include the Dean, the Senior Wrangler, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, and the Chair of Indefinite Studies. Most spend their time attending meals and avoiding work and students. Also on staff is Ponder Stibbons, a younger wizard who works in the High Energy Magic Building. Stibbons is the creator of Hex, a magical computer which performs high speed magical calculations. The staff also includes the Librarian who had the unfortunate luck to to be caught in a passing magical event and transformed into an orangutan. Despite limiting his vocabulary to 'Ook' and causing quite a bit of comment, the Librarian continues with his duties in the Unseen University Library.