Professor Granville

Professor Grace Granville is a major character in Big Hero 6: The Series. She is the Dean of the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology.

Background
Despite being the new Dean by time of Hiro's enrollment, Professor Granville worked at SFIT twenty years prior to the start of the series. According to Wendy Wower and Professor Robert Callaghan, Granville was a phenomenal teacher. She influenced her students a great deal, and made them feel welcomed. Granville, herself, acknowledged that she was much softer on her students in the past, specifically with a young genius named Bob Aken, whom she believed would go on to achieve great things in time. As such, Granville granted this student 24-hour access to the school's lab, under the philosophy that "You can't hold back genius". Unbeknown to her, Aken had been working on an extremely dangerous experiment, which lead to an explosion that nearly killed him. Granville took the blame to protect Aken, and felt internal guilt for having been too careless. She resigned thereafter. The experience made Granville realize that students need limits, even geniuses, which influenced how she handled her professional work from then on.

Personality
Professor Granville is known to be strict, but fair. Her manner of running the school is similar to that of a drill sergeant. She can come off as rather cold towards her students, but in reality, Granville cares a great deal for each of them. As the Dean of SFIT, Granville feels responsible for every student on campus, to the point of giving herself partial blame should any of them fail.

She has a particularly interesting relationship with Hiro, whom she is especially hard on. It is later revealed that this is due to Hiro's recklessness, which reminds Granville of one of her former students (who nearly got himself killed for being too reckless with his experimentation). Granville, nevertheless, admires Hiro and believes him to be capable of great things.

As shown in "Rivalry Weak", Granville is not above participating in the traditional Rivalry Week where SFIT pranks its rival school, San Fransokyo Art Institute, proving she can also be fun and laid-back to some extent. She is also not immune to becoming star-struck, as was the case when biologist and self-made millionaire Liv Amara visited the school.

Physical appearance
Granville is a tall, slender African-American female with short black hair and gold earrings. She wears a gold necklace, a black long-sleeved shirt and long, gray pencil skirt. When she was younger, she had neck-length hair.

Role in the series
Not long after Hiro discovered Baymax's healthcare chip and was starting to make plans to rebuild his friend, Professor Granville knew that he was making himself comfortable in Tadashi Hamada's lab and went to welcome Hiro to the school; as well as to tell him that he needs to earn a lab like his brother did and that he needs to get to the class that she is teaching at the moment. Since Granville is a teacher at SFIT she was able to use the shortcut that allowed her to get to the class before Hiro could enter through the classroom door, in which Hiro couldn't use as he was a student. When she caught Hiro at SFIT during the night - as he was looking for Baymax's runway body - she brought him to her office so they could talk, where she tells him that despite taking part in the illegal underground bot-fights she is willing to give him a chance as she knew that given the chance Hiro could prove himself that he could do good with his skills, bright mind and the knowledge that would gain at the school.

Even when she noticed that the position of the paperweight sculpture that she keeps in her office has been moved a bit, she just placed it back to the way it was and didn't think much about it as she focuses back to her office work. Despite catching Hiro hiding behind a chair disguise rebuild Baymax in Tadashi's lab she thought it best to have another talk with mister Hamada. The professor tells him that it is best that he goes at a slow pace and to keep his work and projects in balance by following the rules, as well as the consequences that they lead to by stepping out of line. Hiro thought about her advice as he had seen that kind of consequences and thought it best that he focus on his schooling and putting his hero day's behind him like the rest of his friends - except Fred - have. When Granville caught Hiro at SFIT during the night again, Hiro quickly put on a sad crying act to explain his "reasons" for being there and so she would go easy on him and let him go, in which she bought through the tears that Hiro forced his eyes to make. She even tried to cheer him up and to stop him "crying".

After the attack of the army of Yama's Baymaxes, Granville made a start in cleaning her wrecked office and found that her sculpture is gone Hiro came to see her so they could talk about his future at SFIT again. During their talk, she told Hiro that she's allowing him to move into Tadashi's lab, as spending time in it may help the young Hamada to not make too many mistakes that could lead to trouble. Despite Hiro being grateful to his Dean for giving him his brother's lab, Professor Granville is not a hugger.

In "Issue 188", Granville noticed that Karmi still wasn't socializing with the other students, so she got SFIT's new youngest student to befriend her. She told Hiro that spending time with Karmi would help him feel more comfortable at SFIT by spending with someone close to his age and knows what it is like to be surrounded by older students, to hide the true the reason for introducing them. Even when Hiro caught onto her plan to help Karmi gain a friend and thanked her for it, the Professor denied his clams, but later smiled when he left her office and slowly began to warm up to him.

When Dr. Trevor Trengrove hosts a workshop at SFIT in "Small Hiro One", Granville forbids Hiro from attending due to Trengrove's strict age restriction and instead assigned the young boy to assisting Wendy Wower. Hiro later learns from Wower that Granville has been a regular teacher at San Fransokyo Tech for twenty years and not recently. Hiro finds a yearbook which shows a picture of Granville with a mysterious boy, which makes Hiro wonder why she kept it a secret.

After learning that Professor Granville was a regular teacher at San Fransokyo Tech before she became the new dean, Hiro set out to learn more. According to Professor Callaghan in "Mini-Max", Granville resigned after an incident on school grounds, supposedly on her account. Hiro's snooping prompts Granville to tell him the whole truth, as a way to earn his trust. She tells Hiro the story of her former student and the events that lead to her resignation twenty years ago. Hiro vows that he won't end up like Granville's former student, which the latter evidently appreciates.

In "Countdown to Catastrophe", Granville was responsible for approving SFIT students' final semester projects for the school open house. When Hiro proposed creating an energy amplifier, Granville strictly forbade him from going through with it, though she did not give him the reasons why.

During the open house, Granville was surprised to see an adult Bob Aken at the fair. She tried apologizing for failing him years ago, to which he insisted she only did what was best for him. Recalling her old philosophy, "You can't hold back genius", he rebukes her for restricting her current proteges from achieving greatness like himself as the left side of his face glowed an eerily neon purple.

Subsequently, after Aken walked away from her, the school is suddenly attacked by Globby, Noodle Burger Boy and Momakase. Shortly after the attack ended, Granville arrives in Hiro's lab to find it trashed. As Big Hero 6 enters, she revealed that she knew of their secret identities and promised to keep their secret. When she asked why the school was attacked for a third time, Hiro confessed that he defied her and built an energy amplifier that was stolen by Obake. Realizing that Bob Aken and Obake were one and the same, Granville informed Big Hero 6 of her history with Obake; a flashback revealed Granville's paperweight to be a fragment of Obake's failed energy amplifier.

After Big Hero 6 saved the city from Obake's plot to destroy it, Hiro visited Granville in her office, where she awards him a passing grade for his final project and for saving the city. Hiro then handed his energy amplifier over to her, admitting she was right about students needing limits. Granville then locked the device in her vault before telling Hiro that next semester will be even more challenging. Just as Hiro was about to leave, she asked if he knew Obake's fate, to which he could not answer.