When looking at John Gonsler you wouldn’t necessarily think that he has a lot of interesting stories to tell, but after interviewing him, you will quickly realize why he is a really good fit for Morningside’s new Criminal Justice Program. Gonsler is one of two professors in Morningside’s new Criminal Justice department. Before Morningside, he taught as an associate instructor at Indiana University, as well as at a university in his hometown of Flint, Michigan.
Gonsler started as a student, but when he realized that that was nothing for him, he dropped out and went into public law enforcement for two years. After this experience, Gonsler went back to college and got his bachelor’s degree in anthropology. He then went on to do his master’s program, as he realized that being a police officer is also nothing for him.
During his time as a police officer, it was proven that the sheriff at his police station “was corrupt and dirtier than a pig’s dick.” Gonsler even mentioned a book that talks about how corrupt his old station was.
In addition to that, there are also a lot of stories that Gonsler mentioned from his time after his master’s program when he worked as a correctional officer. He worked in a medium-security prison, where the inmates had dorms rather than cells. Gonsler said that while he was only there for six months he could “write a fucking book series about interesting stories.” One story that stood out to me was a rather interesting story where a prisoner collected dead baby birds. The prisoner had those dead birds as his ‘pets’. Then one day water the inmates realized that there were three dead baby birds sitting in the boiling hot pot. When the prisoner was asked why he put them in the hot pot he said that “They needed a bath, I dropped them on the floor.”
After this station, Gonsler decided to do his master’s degree. During his time there he was pen pals with Ted Kaczynski, also known as Unabomber. When asked about this story he mentioned that he “was looking for a master’s thesis, and my mentor…. started writing terrorists and said why don’t you do the same? It was 25 guys and the only one to write me back was Ted Kaczynski.” Gonsler and Kaczynski ended up exchanging multiple letters, but in the end, Kaczynski “would start to refuse to answer questions about himself and only talked about technology and how we should get rid of it.”
After all these adventures, Gonsler started teaching at universities and his life became rather calm. However, he found real joy in teaching college students about criminal justice. He is proud “that people are taking classes that they don’t need to and then find some meaning in them.”