Sound Economics Behind Closed Doors:
Meet Gwendolyn Chunn

There are many issues facing the correctional system in the United States. The one that is most pressing and worrisome for Gwendolyn Chunn, 2004-2006 President of the American Correctional Association (ACA), the oldest association developed specifically for practitioners in the correctional profession, is health care for “prisoners of age.”

As leader of this 20,000+ membership organization that has championed the cause of corrections and correctional effectiveness since its inception in 1870, Gwen is focused on building leadership capacity within the system that can develop a public policy response on this issue—a fundamental plan that makes economic sense and is guided by ACA principles of humanity, justice, protection, opportunity, knowledge, competence, and accountability. Her hope is that people closest to the situation can prevent the correctional system’s Age Wave from becoming a devastating financial tidal wave for state budgets across America. Her two-year controversial agenda also includes strategies for addressing the issues of disproportionate minority confinement and correction system retirees.

For some, these may be daunting challenges. Yet Gwen has acquired a skill set tailor-made for tackling daunting challenges. She’s using business and relationship skills taught to her by her father, a college graduate and business owner in the early ’40s, a time that was still in the days of segregation; language arts skills learned as a Woodrow Wilson scholar earning a masters degree at UNC-Chapel Hill in the mid-’60s, a time when there were 19 black students on a campus of approximately 16,000 students; prioritization and life balance skills learned as a single parent while navigating in a career express lane; and knowledge of the corrections systems learned from seasoned veterans as her career skyrocketed through the juvenile justice system.

Persuasion through sound business propositions

Framing daunting challenges into economic propositions is a persuasive technique that became a behavioral stronghold early in Gwen’s upbringing. The eldest of seven children, Gwen was born in 1942 in Salisbury, North Carolina. Her family owned its own business, which she acknowledges was unusual for African-American families in the days of segregation. Gwen and her younger brothers and sisters began learning the business from her father as soon as each one started school: First, the simple tasks of dusting and stocking shelves; then, calculating retail markup, preparing bank deposits and balancing financial statements, and acquiring a strong emphasis on customer service.

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Treating others with dignity and respect was an expectation her father had of his children because everyone was a potential customer. She says what 21st-century business owners call customer service training her father called “the way we treat people.” The expectation grew into a habit that grew into one of Gwen’s personal beliefs. “I really am my father’s daughter. I truly believe there’s no point in disrespecting people. It only complicates what you are trying to do. Once you can understand the power of making people feel positive and inclined to participate with you in whatever you are trying to do, that’s a distinct advantage.”

Gwen says she felt annoyed about working in the family business because they worked all the time, yet when she was ready to enroll in college, she was capable of running the business. She didn’t want to run the business, though. She wanted to go away to college. With her mother’s encouragement, Gwen went to her father with a “business proposition” outlining the economic advantages of attending North Carolina Central in Greensboro rather than attending Livingstone College, her father’s alma mater, in Salisbury. She was successful in presenting her proposal. In 1960, her father drove her to North Carolina Central, told her to behave herself and make good grades.

Life Lessons from College Years

Making good grades was a high priority because it was her father’s expectation. Gwen started with a major in math and was good in math. She took advanced algebra and trigonometry. Then, an instructor talked to her about “The Calculus.” Gwen went to upperclassmen to check out “The Calculus” books. She says she couldn’t understand the symbols and noticed the upperclassmen were not doing “The Calculus” on their lunch hour. They were spending hours at night poring over their assignments. She began to think “maybe not.”

At the same time, her French teacher was telling her she had a natural gift for language. She began to consider a language arts major. A professor from Havana came to North Carolina Central after the Bay of Pigs incident; Gwen was captivated by her effervescence and her willingness to learn English while helping her students to learn Spanish. She chose to major in language arts and graduated with a double major in Spanish and French and a double minor in English and Education.

Gwen earned a summer student exchange program in Mexico during her sophomore year and spent the first of three total immersion language experiences in Mexico. During that first visit, she learned a valuable life lesson—look at the intent of what a person is saying, not the words. She says it’s a life lesson that has held her in good stead while pursuing her masters degree at UNC-Chapel Hill in the mid-’60s and throughout her career. “Once you now what the intent is, then you can govern yourself accordingly.”

Gwendolyn Chunn, President, American Correctional Association

Another life lesson learned in her college years continues to influence her perspective on being in service to others. Gwen says she was part of the sit-ins, the marches and going to jail in the early ’60s. She served in women’s government all four years of college, even though she wasn’t extroverted. She guesses it’s from growing up being the oldest child and being responsible. She says she remembers people saying to her that they voted for her because it was clear she was going to take care of people and not “fritter” around.

One of the first causes she took up was a petition for extended hours by women on campus. The Dean of Women challenged students by requesting an explanation of what some of the social surroundings had to offer that warranted extended hours. That meant by definition that anyone who could submit a report was “out of bounds.” Gwen accepted the challenge and made a report. Gwen soon discovered that doing the right thing may be politically incorrect, as she was not hand selected by the Dean of Women to serve as President of the Council. It was the first time the on-campus senior representative was not president.

Skyrocketing Career Successes

In 1966, with a UNC-Chapel Hill masters degree in Spanish and a minor in French, Gwen started teaching at Shaw University in Raleigh. She was at the University for seven years and had her children in that timeframe. In the early ’70s she started working in Youth Services within the juvenile justice system, and her career skyrocketed. By 1989, she was Director of North Carolina’s Juvenile Justice System.

Gwen’s insistence that professional rigor and a notion of predictability about what is being done and why it is being done in the system were important and led her to seek out an association of correctional professionals so she could learn best practices. She discovered the American Correctional Association. Today, Gwen says her early training has helped her to approach her leadership position in the correctional system from the economic side, never from the social work position. “It’s the economics of it.” She also still believes it’s more important to do the right thing than to be politically correct. It may be what influenced her to lay out a controversial agenda for her two-year term as President of ACA and tackle daunting challenges.

Successful Living Ideas from Gwen:

• Continuous Learning

1) Admit what you don’t know in a way that doesn’t suggest that you are wholly inadequate or unprepared.
2) Learn to be comfortable in most settings.
3) Learn the things that you need to know, no matter who teaches them.
4) Be good at a few things; be open to learning some things, and be aware that you will never be all that you think you could have been or should have been.

• Accepting Compliments: As a woman, learn to take a compliment. Men know how. All the guys learn to say “Thank you very much, I’m glad you feel that way,” and go on. Somehow, women learn to tell you where the flaws are. Learn to say “thank you very much.”

• Self-care Strategies

1) Always figure out how to sustain yourself. When the mind and the spirit are out of whack, you start to disintegrate.
2) Give up the notion that everything has to be exactly right. Nobody else is doing it. In an imperfect world, why would you want to be perfect?
3) Pace yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built.
4) Give yourself a break because you have to be around in order to reap the benefits of what you’ve done.

• Balance: Don’t neglect family to the point that you lose them. There is a limit on how much you can give without losing other pieces of yourself that are also important, particularly for women. At the end of your day, who is going to be with you at your bedside?