Hank teaches journalism and sports communication classes currently (since 2002) at Franklin College. His “beat” as an investigative and feature writer includes the U.S. Midwest, Poland, and Alaska. His academic specialty is education, specifically hazing, particularly the history of hazing. Hank Nuwer is an award winner of State University of New York (Buffalo State) honorary Doctor of Humane Letters ( See also IMBD page and Buffalo State College bio page).
He writes for many well known online and print publications such as Salon.
Hank Nuwer maintains the Hazing Deaths database. See summary article in PennLive.
His academic specialty is hazing as an international social issue. His books on the topic of hazing in society including Hazing: Destroying Young Lives, Wrongs of Passage, High School Hazing, Broken Pledges, and The Hazing Reader.
In late August 2019, he accepted an offer to write a massive 175,000-word book on hazing in all USA groups tent. titled “Hazing in American Culture.” (due 2021)
The Antihazing Hero Awards are his pride and joy.
He cherishes the award winners making a difference. Link to Hank Nuwer Antihazing Award winners 2007-2019 at HazingPrevention.Org Nominate someone deserving such as Lianne Kowiak and Mr. and Mrs. Gruver below!
His essays and articles have appeared in the South Carolina Review, Ball State Forum, (forthcoming) The Limberlost Review, Idaho State Rendezvous, New York Times Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, The Nation, GQ, Outside, The Conversation, Rocky Mountain, Boston, Indianapolis Monthly, The Nation, Sport, Orlando Sentinel, Globe & Mail, Times of India, Denver Magazine, Inside Sports, Saturday Evening Post, Ozark airline magazine, various AARP publications, Men’s Fitness, Buffalo Courier Express, and Fireside Companion.
Member: Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society, Sons of the American Legion. Formerly Sigma Tau Rho Fraternity, no longer in operation.
Charitable work: He contributes regularly to the Hank Nuwer Anti-Hazing Hero Award and to Buffalo State College Hank Nuwer Collection and BSC Hazing Collection under BSC archivist Daniel DiLandro.
Link to the Buffalo State (SUNY) Hank Nuwer Hazing Collection
Read “One Long Wild Conversation,” which contains 40 years of correspondence between author Hank Nuwer and Buffalo State Professor Fraser Drew
A founding board member of HazingPrevention.org, he contributes donations to its annual Hank Nuwer Antihazing Hero Awards for HazingPrevention.org
Hank graduated from Buffalo State College (B.S.) and New Mexico Highlands University (M.A.); he has an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York (Buffalo State, 2006) and taken additional graduate coursework at the University of Nevada and Hamline University.
Ball State University awarded him its doctoral equivalency for his research and publications in 1986 and elected him in 2010 to the BSU Journalism Hall of Fame. Ball State feature on Hank Nuwer, 1989.
He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska-Nuwer, currently taking advanced taxation and other courses at Franklin while working online for an international Polish accounting firm.
Scholarship and Miscellaneous Publications:
2022 (anticipated): A scholarly biography and appreciation of Kurt Vonnegut.
2021 (anticipated): Hazing in American Culture (Publisher ABC-CLIO).
2020: Nuwer Hank: “Rereading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five,” The Limberlost Review.
2019: Nuwer, Hank. In-progress Y/A book on Cyberbullying. Anticipated completion: 2019.
June 2019: Nuwer Hank. Presentation on Conference-agenda at a Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski conference in Warsaw Poland. Coming out in a book chapter on the proceedings.
2019: Nuwer, Hank. Review of “Echeverria” by Gertrude Skivington, Western American Literature, University of Nebraska Press, Spring 2019.
2019: Completing final draft of a full-length play “The Monster,” an adaptation of a Stephen Crane novella.
2018: Editor and contributor to “Hazing: Destroying Young Lives” (Indiana University Press).
2018: Wrote forward to “Building Up without Tearing Down: How to Cultivate Heroic Leadership in You and Your Organization by Chad Ellsworth (Aviva Publishing).
2018: Nicoletti, John and Hank Nuwer (Hazing essay). “Violence Goes to College,” Thomas Publishers), 2009 and 2015 (second edition) and 2018 (third edition).
2018: Nuwer, Hank. “Poland Must Preserve Its Constitution,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” July 5, 2018.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. Quoted in “Blood, Bone and Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews” by Ted Geltner (University of Georgia Press).
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Hazing Death No Longer Shrugged off by Juries,” “Thestatehousefile.com,” December 26, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Penn State’s Tim Bream: Betrayed by the Brotherhood,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” September 15, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Penn State University’s Tarnished Lions,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” September 4, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Must the USA Endure 50 Years of Hazing Deaths?” “Thestatehousebureau.com, “September 1, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “The European Commission Digs a Line in he Sand Against Poland,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” July 26, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Is Poland’s Departure from the European Union Inevitable?” “Thestatehousebureau.com, “July 26, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Trump Fiddled while Democracy Burned in Poland,” “Thestatehousebureau.com, “July 21, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Parent Alert: Check Out Your Kids’ Camp for Hazing Masked as Pranks,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” July 5, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “A Quiet Protest to Raise Hazing Awareness,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” June 23, 2017.
2016: Published “Maurice Sendak Q & A” in “Conversations with Maurice Sendak,” edited by Peter C. Kunze (University Press of Mississippi).
2015: Published one-act play “A Broken Pledge” (Shalako Press). Author: Nuwer; Director: Ray Begovich. Performed twice at University of Cincinnati and once at Buffalo State College.
Nuwer, Hank. “Hazing in Fraternities and Sororities,” “International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavorial Sciences,” 2nd ed., vol. 10.
Nuwer, Hank. “Challenges Being Made to Licensure Exam Following Educator Frustration, “Thestatehousebureau.com,” December 8, 2015.
Nuwer, Hank. “Elegy for an Indianapolis Mad Dog,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” October 23, 2015.
Nuwer, Hank. “Seeing the Writing on the Wall,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” October 7, 2015.
Nuwer, Hank. “On Not Judging by Appearances,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,”October 1, 2015.
Nuwer, Hank. “Unsafe at Any Speed: Volkswagen’s Emission Scandal,” “Thestatehousebureau.com,” September 24, 2015.
Nuwer, Hank and Tracy Maxwell, “Hazing,” “World Book Encyclopedia,” 2014.
Nuwer, Hank.“Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey” (Shalako Press), 2013.
Nuwer, Hank. “A Band Hazing May Forever Increase the Legal Consequences for Hazing Deaths,” “Fraternal Law,” January 2012.
. “What’s the life of a dead fraternity pledge worth?–$1,000,” “Orlando Sentinel,” July 11, 2012.
2009: Nuwer, Hank and Fraser Drew.“One Long Wild Conversation,” Buffalo State Library.
2009: Nuwer, Hank. “The Freelance Writer’s Desktop Companion” (Alta Villa Publishing).
2007: Nuwer, Hank. “Vonnegut’s Home Forever,” Indianapolis Star, April 13, 2007.
2006: Nuwer, Hank. “Literary Journalism,” in “Real Feature Writing” by Abe Aamidor, (Routledge), 2006.
2004: Nuwer, Hank. “The Hazing Reader” (Indiana University Press).
2004: “Nuwer, Hank . “At the Crest: A History of Cedar Crest (PA) College” (CC Alumni Press).
2002: Nuwer, Hank. “To the Young Writer” (Grolier/Franklin Watts).
2002: Nuwer, Hank. “The Man Whose Soul Is Not for Sale: Jim Harrison,” in DeMott, Robert, “Conversations with Jim Harrison,” UP of Mississippi.
2001: Nuwer Hank, “Broken Pledges” essay in Hallman Bryant, Understanding a Separate Peace, Greenwood Press.
2001: Nuwer, Hank. “A Matter of Perception,” “David Mamet in Conversation,” University of Michigan Press, 2001.
1999: Nuwer, Hank . “The Writer Who Plays with Pain,” in Bledsoe, Erik (ed.). Getting Naked With Harry Crews: Selected Interviews, University of Florida Press.
1999 (Second revised edition 2001): “Nuwer, Hank. Wrongs of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing and Binge Drinking” (Indiana University Press).
2000: Nuwer, Hank. “High School Hazing” (Scholastic Press), 2000.
1998: Nuwer, Hank. “The Legend of Jesse Owens” (Grolier/Franklin Watts), 1998.
1995: Nuwer, Hank. “How to Write Like an Expert About Anything” (Writer’s Digest Books), 1995.
1995: “Comes a Horseman-Poet: An Interview with Henry Taylor” in The South Carolina Review, Fall 1994/Spring 1995.
1990: Nuwer, Hank. “Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing “(Longstreet Press), 1990.
1990: Nuwer, Hank. “Steroids” (Franklin Watts), 1990.
1990: Nuwer, Hank, “Elbert Hubbard,” in Riley, Sam. “American Magazine Journalists,” (Detroit: Gale), No. 91.
1989: Nuwer, Hank in Allen, William Rodney (ed.) Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut (University of Mississipi Press), 1989.
1989: Nuwer Hank, “Limitations and Infinities” in “The Voiced Connections of James Dickey: Interviews and Conversations,” Edited by Ronald Baughman (University of South Carolina Press).
- Nuwer, Hank. “A Conversation with George Plimpton,” “Ball State University Forum,” Summer 1989.
1988: Nuwer, Hank. “Rendezvousing with Contemporary Authors “(Idaho State University Press).
1988: “Tom Wolfe and the Agrarians” presented at Tom Wolfe Symposium, Randolph-Macon, 1988.
1987: Nuwer, Hank. “A Skull Session with Kurt Vonnegut,” “South Carolina Review,” Spring 1987.
1986: Nuwer, Hank and Robert Waite , editor. “Rendezvous at the Ezra Pound Centennial Conference,” Idaho State University Press).
1986: Nuwer, Hank. “An Appreciation of Ezra Pound, Editor” in Rendezvous at the Ezra Pound Centennial Conference;( Idaho State University Press).
1984: Nuwer, Hank . Jack Schaefer Interview in Shane: The Critical Edition (University of Nebraska Press) by Work, James C. (ed.).
1976: “Robinson Jeffers’ Influence on Walter Van Tilburg Clark” in Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, Number 44, March 1976.
1976: “Ice Breaking” in Shoptalk (Kansas State University Freshman Composition periodical), 1976.
Selected Nuwer scholarship cited in publications:
Wolf, Jeremy, “Tough New Law,” “Inside Higher Education,” July 18, 2019.
Gash, Andrea. “Felony Conviction,” “The Advocate,”July 19, 2019.
Robbins, Alexandra. “Fraternity,” Dutton 2019.
Hechinger, John. “True Gentlemen,” Hachette, 2017.
Cited by The Atlantic magazine.
Wolf, L.A., et al. “Nurse Bullying and Hazing,” “Int. Emergency Nursing,” September 22, 2017.
Stuart, Susan P. 35 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 377 (2013)
“Warriors, Machismo, and Jockstraps: Sexually Exploitative Athletic Hazing and Title IX in the Public School Locker Room.”
Hechinger, John. “Fraternities Scuttle Proposals to Ban Freshman Rush After Drinking Deaths,” “Bloomberg News,” October 5, 2013.
Alvarez, D.M., “Death by Hazing.” Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (1947-2900), 2015 – jmrpublication.org
Keenan, J.F. “How Colleges Can Build and Benefit from a Culture of Ethics.” (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).
Gurbacki, K., et al. “Hazed and Confused.” “Entertainment and Sports Law Review,” 2015.
Manzanedo, Arturo. “The Persistence of Hazing in the Military,” Defense Technical Information Center, April 25, 2013.
Young, C.J. “Minding the Realm: William Least Heat Moon and the Blue Highways of Public Memory,” “South Shore Review, 2013.
Lundsen, Richard. Hazing: Rituals of Bondage, Create Space, 2013.
Crumm, David. The New Bullying, Michigan State University, 2012.
Grimes, Ronald L. Ritual, Media, and Conflict, Oxford Ritual Studies, 2011.
Anderson, Eric, et al. “Male Team Sport Hazing Initiations in a Culture of Decreasing Homohysteria,” Journal of Adolescent Research, July 2011.
Cimino, Aldo. “On the Perception of Newcomers,” Human Nature, June 10, 2010.
Waldron, Jennifer L. and Christopher L. Kowalski. “Crossing the Line: Rites of Passage, Team Aspects, and Ambiguity of Hazing, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, (80), 2, June 2009, 291-302.
Fields, Sarah K. et al. “Violence in Youth Sports: Hazing, Brawling, and Foul Play,” Journal of Sports Medicine, October 25, 2009.
Kimmel, Michael. Guyland, HarperCollins, 2008.
Parks, Gregory S. Black Greek-Letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century, University of Kentucky Press, 2008.
Weishampel, Stefan. The Role of Scientist, Diplomica Verlag GMBH, 2008.
Clery, Constance L., et al. Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses, Styles Publishing, 2007.
Guernsey, Bridget. “Book Review of Preventing Hazing by S. Lipkins,” NASPA Journal, (44), 1, 2007.
Kimbrough, Walter. “Why Students Beat Each Other,” in Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses by Jerlando F. L. Jackson, Stylus, 2007.
Finley, Laura L. and Finley, Peter. “A Content Analysis of news coverage of sports-related hazing incidents in high schools,” Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 14 (2), 2007, 197-219.
Bronner, Simon J. Crossing the Line, Amsterdam University Press, 2007.
Lipkins, Susan. Preventing Hazing, Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Howard, Adam and Elizabeth England Kennedy. “Breaking the Silence: Power, Conflict, and Contested Frames within an Affluent High School,” Anthropology and Education Quarterly, (37), 4, 2006, 347-365.
Gervais, Joe. “In the Name of Obedience: Overcoming the Damaging Myths about Hazing,” in Prettyman, Sandra Spickard and Brian Lampman, Learning Culture Through Sports, Exploring the Role of Sports in Society, Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006.
Robbins, Alexandra. Pledged, Hyperion, 2004.
Jones, Ricky L. Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities, SUNY Press, 2004.
Dundes, Alan. Bloody Mary in the Mirror, University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Mailer, Norman. The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing, Random House, 2003.
Gulledge, Jo and Shawn Beard. Campus Safety & Security (Aspen Publishers), 2002.
Hollmann, Barbara B. “Hazing: Hidden Campus Crime,” New Directions for Student Services, Wiley (99), Fall 2002.
Horner, Carl S. The Boy Inside the American Businessman, University Press of America, 1992.
Weinberg, Steve. The Reporter’s Handbook: An Investigator’s Guide to Documents and Techniques, IRE, 2002 rev.
Weinberg, Robert. The Louis L’Amour Companion (Bantam), 1994.
