Dean Harbinger Harrow is the narrator and compiler of journal entries for the text. Witty, upbeat, and avuncular, he is the source of the majority of the puns and aphorisms about death and murder that create the humor of the text. His students often don’t know if he is serious or not and find his cheerfulness both uplifting and disturbing. He is the moral epicenter of the school, constantly referring to the Four Enquiries and philosophizing to students about the nature of death and murder as well as humanity and compassion through quotes or phrases from scholars or the school’s founder. He is the protagonist Cliff Iverson’s faculty advisor.

Dean Harrow is in conflict with his assistant dean, Erma Daimler, who is his opposite in personality and sense of humor and who thinks Dean Harrow’s overarching-style of education is unprofitable. Harrow’s desire to make McMaster’s teachings available to people with a wider range of economic backgrounds causes him to write Murder Your Employer and ultimately leads to his deletion at the end of the text. The egotistical love of his written project enables him to see that he has broken his own rules and put the school in jeopardy by revealing the existence of McMasters to the public.