Curriculum Vitae
Hank Nuwer
University of Alaska Department of Science and Environmental Journalism
Personal Papers: Buffalo State University “Hank Nuwer Collection” and “Nuwer Hazing Collection”: https://library.buffalostate.edu/archives/nuwer
Database of Hazing Deaths: Http:hanknuwer.com
Writer Blog: Realalaskadaily.com
Education
B.S. in English, Buffalo State College, 1968. Winner of Outstanding Undergraduate Award in Contemporary Literature.
M.A. in English, New Mexico Highlands University, 1971. (GPA 3.9). Note: Includes transfer hours from the University of Bridgeport’s Shakespeare Institute and Western Connecticut College, 1969-1970.
Additional graduate coursework (1972-1975) in English, University of Nevada-Reno (GPA 3.9). Major areas: Literary and New Journalism, American Literature and Western American Literature.
Additional graduate coursework: MFA Storytelling Graduate coursework in nonfiction and fiction writing, Hamline/St. Olaf, 2012-2015, GPA 4.0.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, State University of New York (2006). Conferred at Buffalo State University.
Current Work Experience:
Adjunct Professor, University of Alaska, Fairbanks since January 2025.
Columnist: Cordova (AK) Times since October 2024.
Affiliations:
Society of Professional Journalists (1985-Present).
Phi Kappa Phi national honor society (1971-Present).
Investigative Reporters and Editors (1995-Present).
Western Writers of America (2014-Present).
Western American Literature (1976-1980, 2001-Present)
Alpha Lambda Delta national honor society (2004-Present).
Biographers International (2019-Present)
Accomplishments
2025: Suzanne Nightingale Alaska Newspaper Columnist of the Year, Alaska Press Club
2025: Hoosier Press Association First Place, Best Commentary
2024-2025: One of four “Champions for Children,” Alaska Children’s Trust, to honor my body of work engaged in fighting human rights abuses
2024: Suzanne Nightingale Alaska Newspaper Columnist of the Year, Alaska Press Club
2022: Third place, Indiana SPJ small-market columnist of year
2021: First Place, Ohio SPJ small-market columnist of year
2020: Northeast Greek Adviser (NGLA) Association created the annual Hank Nuwer Award for excellence in student programming to combat campus hazing.
2017 and 2007: Voted Franklin College Scholar of the Year by committee. Nominated three times as an outstanding adviser at Franklin College. Nominated three times as outstanding teacher at Franklin College
2013: Awarded a fellowship from the SUNY Buffalo State Anne Frank Project in a national competition. Performed my one-person play “A Broken Pledge.”
2011: A documentary on hazing that I, in part, narrated won the CINE Golden Eagle Award.
2010: Elected to Ball State University Journalism Hall of Fame.
2006 to present year: HazingPrevention.Org named its annual Antihazing Award the Hank Nuwer Antihazing Award. Winners have included nationally known activists Lianne Kowiak and Jim Piazza, as well as former NFL player Peyton Manning.
2006: Received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters as author and humanitarian, State University of New York. Commencement speaker with main speaker Hillary Rodham Clinton.
2004: Awarded third place, best essay from Fraternity Executives Association Board of Editors.
2003: New York State Public Library named “To the Young Writer” a “Recommended Young Adult Book of the Year” in ceremonies held in NYC.
2002: Society of Professional Journalists “Best Business Article,” Third Place. Investigative story on Alaska’s coal industry. Indianapolis Monthly Magazine.
1999: Named a Buffalo State College Outstanding Alumnus.
1989: Named College Media Advisers national new outstanding student magazine adviser.
1988: Named Ball State University’s “Outstanding Professor” in national CASE competition; also named Ball State media adviser of year, 1988.
- Nuwer Scholarship and Miscellaneous Publications
2025-2026: Completing a collection of published essays and memoirs
2025-2026: Completing a contracted biography of author Kurt Vonnegut.
2025 “Alaska Adventure” in Phi Kappa Phi Forum
2024: Nuwer, Hank. “Introduction” to Hazing in the New Millenia, edited by Jay Johnson, Emerald Press.
2023: Nuwer, Hank and Elizabeth Allan, “Fraternity and Sorority Hazing” in Gender-Based Crime: Learning Through Experts and Cases, Cognella Academic Publishing.
2022: Nuwer, Hank. “Rituals of Toxic Masculinity: Hazing in the Old West As Viewed in Fiction, Art and Myth,” International Conference on the American Literary West,” October 3-5, 2022, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, Spain.
2022: Nuwer, Hank. “Homeless” in the 2022 Edition of Limberlost Press’ The Limberlost Review.
2022: Nuwer, Hank. Review of “True North” by Gary Eller, Western American Literature, University of Nebraska Press, Spring 2022.
2022: Nuwer, Hank. Review of “Around the World in 80 Books” by David Damrosch, Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Summer 2022.
2021: Nuwer, Hank. “Polonia,” in the 2021 Edition of Limberlost Press’ The Limberlost Review.
2021: Nuwer, Hank. “Clery Center Tax Records Report Embezzlement,” Thestatehousebureau.com, October 1, 2021.
2020: Nuwer, Hank. “On Kurt Vonnegut” in the 2020 Edition of Limberlost Press’ The Limberlost Review.
2020: Nuwer, Hank. “Hazing in Fraternities and Sororities,” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavorial Sciences, 2nd ed., vol. 10.
2020: Nuwer, Hank. “Garfield Park’s Confederate Monument in Perspective,” Thestatehousebureau.com, June 12, 2020.
2019: Nuwer, Hank. “Hazing Abuses in U.S. Prisons,” The Prison Systems Review, Warsaw, Poland. Delivered first in 2019 as a paper at a University of Economics and Human Sciences conference.
2019: Nuwer, Hank. Review of “Echeverria” by Gertrude Skivington, Western American Literature, University of Nebraska Press, Spring 2019.
2018: Editor and contributing essay author 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” in Violence Goes to College, Thomas Publishers, third edition.
2018: Nuwer, Hank. “Poland Must Preserve Its Constitution,” Thestatehousebureau.com, July 5, 2018.
2017: “Why Hazing Continues to Be a Rite of Passage, The Conversation, October 16, 2017.
2017: “The Wrongs of Passage in Fraternity Hazing,” The Conversation, August 28, 2017.
2017: Nuwer, Hank. “Hazing Death No Longer Shrugged off by Juries,” Thestatehousebureau.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 the 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: Nuwer, Hank. “Maurice Sendak Q & A” in Conversations with Maurice Sendak, edited by Peter C. Kunze (University Press of Mississippi).
2015: Nuwer, Hank. One-act play “A Broken Pledge” (Shalako Press). Performed twice at University of Cincinnati, once at Buffalo State College, three times at Franklin College.
2015: Nuwer, Hank. “Challenges Being Made to Licensure Exam Following Educator Frustration, Thestatehousebureau.com, December 8, 2015.
2015: Nuwer, Hank. “Elegy for an Indianapolis Mad Dog,” Thestatehousebureau.com, October 23, 2015.
2015: Nuwer, Hank. “Seeing the Writing on the Wall,” Thestatehousebureau.com, October 7, 2015.
2015: Nuwer, Hank. “On Not Judging by Appearances,” Thestatehousebureau.com, October 1, 2015.
2015: Nuwer, Hank. “Unsafe at Any Speed: Volkswagen’s Emission Scandal,” Thestatehousebureau.com, September 24, 2015.
2014: Nuwer, Hank. “Exclusionary Policies in the Old American West,” University of the Basque Country Western American Literature Conference. October 10, 2014.
2014: Nuwer, Hank and Tracy Maxwell, “Hazing,” World Book Encyclopedia, 2014.
2013: Nuwer, Hank. Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey (Shalako Press).
Nuwer, Hank. “A Band Hazing May Forever Increase the Legal Consequences for Hazing Deaths,” Fraternal Law, January 2012.
Nuwer, Hank: “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 Press.
2009-2010: Hank Nuwer, “Good Libations,” monthly wine and beverage column.
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. See https://tinyurl.com/yc6z8sx6
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,” in David Mamet in Conversation, University of Michigan Press, 2001.
2001: Nuwer, Hank. “The Coal Truth,” Indianapolis Monthly, June 2001. https://tinyurl.com/mtjv78yy
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 , editors. 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: Nuwer, Hank. “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 work Cited in Scholarly Publications, Dissertations, Theses, Books
Page Under Construction
Cimino, Aldo et al. “Workplace Hazing,” Group & Organization Management, 2021.
Kim, S. “The Power of Groups I Youth Sports, Elsevier, 2020.
Hechinger, John. “True Gentlemen,” Hachette, 2017.
Robbins, Alexandra. Fraternity: An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men, Dutton, 2015.
Stuart, Susan P. 35 “Warriors, Machismo, and Jockstraps: Sexually Exploitative Athletic Hazing and Title IX in the Public School Locker Room,” W. New Eng. L. Rev. 377 (2013)
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.
Kimmell, Michael. Guyland, HarperCollins, 2008.
Parks, Gregory S. Black Greek-Letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century, University of Kentucky Press, 2008.
Hamilton, Jill. Bullying and Hazing,” Greenhaven Press, 2008. Updated 2011.
Weishampel, Stefan. The Role of Scientist, Diplomica Verlag GMBH, 2008.
DeSantis, Alan. Inside Greek University, University of Kentucky Press, 2007.
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.
Social Media
Webmaster of http:://www.hazing.hanknuwer.com since 1995. Cited in a full-length article by The Economist in 2017. Cited in Adjunct Professor Magazine in 2003 as a top web site by a college professor.