Morningside University premiered their Criminal Justice Department in 2020. Therefore, John Gonsler is not only a new faculty member, in Fall 2021 he also makes up 50% of the entire department. Given this erosion of the new department, the Journalism Class decided to interview Gonsler who does not appear to be the ordinary Professor when it comes to real life experience. He is very expressive and outgoing in the form of his responses, his body-art and facial hair.

Gonsler’s story begins in the classroom as a student, until realizing that it was nothing for him. He decided to drop out of college and aimed to become a police officer. However, he speaks on how this was also not what he wanted. His experience with corruption and sheriffs who were “dirtier than pigs’ dicks” scared him off. But Gonsler is not the person to be scared at all. He continues about his experience as a correctional officer and his encounters of death threats and how him and another correctional officer had to take care of 160 inmates, equipped with only pepper spray and handcuffs. Gonsler must have a thick skin, and that is not because of the amount of tattoos he as. He continues about the everyday life with gangs, murderers and “people that stood out”. Once, he shares, prisoners complained about the awkward taste of their water. When looking inside the hot pot, there were three baby birds. It came out that one of the prisoners collected dead baby birds. When being asked why he put them in the hot pot, he said he dropped them and they got dirty, they needed a bath. “I was there for six months and I could write a fucking book about interesting stories”.

Gonsler’s story ends in the classroom, nonetheless, the presence of maniacs in his life remained. The former police officer and correctional officer did a master’s degree around serial killers and got to interview the terrorist Ted Kasczinsky known as the Unabomber. After finishing his bachelor’s degree in anthropology and his master’s in U Michigan and Indiana University, he applied for a Job at Morningside. Now the only maniacs he deals with are college students.

What we can take away from Gonsler’s interview is that he did not know right away what he wanted to be and that this is nothing to worry about if one finds themselves in the same spot. Perhaps this is why Gonsler enjoys being a professor for intro classes. ” I like that people are taking classes that they don’t need to and then find some meaning in them”.