Hank Nuwer is a University of Alaska (Fairbanks) adjunct professor; Franklin College emeritus professor and working journalist/author/Cordova Times (Alaska) columnist best known for his literary journalism and his hazing deaths unofficial clearinghouse. His research and/or books on hazing have been included in articles for the New York Times, Die Zweit, Washington Post, National Public Radio, Times of India, The Conversation, and The Guardian.
Hank Nuwer’s latest book “Hazing: Destroying Young Lives,” a collaboration with experts on Greek life and athletics, student affairs and attorneys, is proactive and is all about preventing hazing, recognizing hazing and taking forcible action to eradicate the culture from fraternities, sororities, bands, sports teams and student clubs. It is a companion to his earlier “Hazing Reader” and “Wrongs of Passage.”
Hank Nuwer’s scholar expertise is hazing education (Hazing, Wrongs of Passage, Hazing Reader). He is also a historical novelist (Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey), playwright (A Broken Pledge; Death of a Rookie, Beyond Survival) and journalist/social critic known for his many interviews with authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Louis L’Amour, James Dickey, Harry Crews, John Jakes, David Mamet, and Maurice Sendak. As a labor of love, for many years, he has worked on his most difficult project, a scholarly biography of American novelist and social critic Kurt Vonnegut.
On September 12, 2024, because of his 49 years working for hazing prevention and hazing education, he received one of the four recognitions by the Alaska Children’s Trust Champions for Kids given individuals who demonstrate dedication and commitment in working to ensure that children and youth are living in safe, supportive, and nurturing communities.
Nuwer writes books and weekly columns for the Cordova Times in Alaska. His main residence is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with additional 15 and 5 acres in remote Alaska. He is a former managing editor at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and a former columnist with the Winchester News-Gazette. His secondary addresses are in Union City (Randolph County), Indiana, and Warsaw, Poland.
He is married to Malgorzata (Gosia) Wroblewska-Nuwer). He has two adult sons and a stepdaughter.
The Alaska Press Club in 2024 awarded him its first prize Best Columnist and second place best humorist award for his work published in 2023.
The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists named him its Ohio #1 Columnist of 2021. He has also won awards for column writing and business writing from the Indiana chapter, Society of Professional Journalists.
His magazine articles include participatory journalism such as playing pro baseball with the Montreal Expos in spring training, herding sheep with Basques in rugged Nevada, and flying Idaho’s unfriendly skies with a back-country pilot. He also played first base on assignment for the Indianapolis Clowns and right field for the New York Mutuals vintage baseball club. He once visited journalist George Plimpton at his New York study to interview him about participatory journalism for a scholarly interview and magazine story.
He first wrote about hazing for Human Behavior Magazine in 1975. He now is working on a scholarly biography of Kurt Vonnegut, and a book on hazing in American culture with yet another database. Most recently, he began collecting and assimilting data on deaths of police recruits during training.
His hobbies include stamp collecting, reading international authors, and acting in Alaska theater. Most recently he played Ed Boone in The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time; Santa Claus in Twas the Night Before Christmas, the Moving Man in Raisin in the Sun; Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, the Old Man in King Lear, Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet, the Professor in the University of Alaska’s Something in the Living Room, and Uncle Arnold in Love Me (UAF student film).
He also performs one-man plays for hazing education titled “Death of a Rookie” and “A Broken Pledge.”
He was trained at the Shakespeare Institute where he won a fellowship for his satire “Tricky the First” and played Hal in Henry IV, Part Two, and Flute/Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream under director and lead actor James W. Parker of VCU Theater. UB faculty members included actor Morris Carnovsky, scholar Alan Dorner and Michael Kahn. Also speaking with students that year were actors Brian Bedford and Moses Gunn.
Nuwer’s play “Beyond Survival” was put on at the University of Nevada in 1975. Over the years, he played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lovborg in Hedda Gabler, Adam in an Arthur Miller play reading, the Angel of Death in Edward Albee’s The Sandbox, and the Inventor in Peter Ustinov’s The Unknown Soldier and His Wife. The latter play at Highlands University in New Mexico competed in Fort Worth as an American College Theater Southwest finalist. There, actor Joe Campanella mentored his Highlands theater group (NMHU’s Chris Williams directed the play).
The Hazing Prevention Network and Northeast Greek Association award annual “Hank Nuwer Awards” to honor individuals and groups doing an outstanding job to educate schools and the public about hazing.
Hank Nuwer was an undergraduate fraternity member at Buffalo State and wrote for the Record Newspaper and played baseball and managed soccer. See BSU Hall of Fame.
His papers are collected at the Buffalo State University Butler Library. Other letters of his are kept at the Mark Steadman papers at Clemson University. He has an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from his Alma Mater and is a 1999 Distinguished Alumnus. He spoke to graduate students at BSU as a Commencement speaker in 2006 when he received his honorary doctorate. (Hillary Clinton spoke to undergraduates at. Commencement that same day).
In his early career, Nuwer self-taught himself to write potboilers, humor and less serious features, disavowing that approach in the early Eighties to devote himself to serious journalism. He also edited the work of/interviews with Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, William Stafford, Thom Gunn, Josephine Miles and Robert Laxalt while editor of Brushfire Magazine, 1973-1975.
He has taught graduate students in journalism at Ball State University and undergraduate students at Franklin College, Ball State, Anderson University, Clemson University and the University of Richmond (Virginia). Hank Nuwer was elected to the Ball State Journalism Hall of Fame. He has given talks on hazing education at well over 120 schools, including the University of Oregon, University of Texas, University of Illinois, Indiana University, Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth College. He has lectured on either hazing or his own writing at colleges in Poland, Spain and Canada. His memberships include Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, Alpha Lambda Delta honor society, Sons of the American Legion, Order of the Arrow, Western Writers of America, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Alaska Press Club.
Author photo credit below: University of Alaska Fairbanks Theater and Film Department.
He founded and continues to update the Buffalo State University Hazing Collection with archivist Daniel DiLandro. He is at work full-time on two new books in 2024 at his homes in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Warsaw, Poland. He is married to Malgorzata (Gosia) Wroblewska-Nuwer.
Hank Nuwer‘s next hazing publication is his 2024 introduction to “Sport Hazing in the New Millenia.” The book’s editors are Professor Jessica Chin of San Jose State University & Professor Jay Johnson of the University of Manitoba {2024, Emerald Press).
In 2023, he was the co-author of “Hazing in Fraternities and Sororities” with Elizabeth Allan in Gender-Based Crime: Learning Through Experts and Cases (edited by Kathleen A. Bogle).
His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press.
Gosia Nuwer (below photo)
See recent articles on Hank Nuwer in Athletic Business and his appearance in the movie Hazing by Byron Hurt.
Hank Nuwer also currently/recently performed in 2024 and 2023 theater productions at the University of Alaska; the Fairbanks Drama Association, and the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theater. In 2024, he acted in the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) spring production of “Something in the Living Room,” a combination film and full-length play by Alaska playwright Kavelina Torres; FDA’s A Raisin in the Sun, UAF’s Love Me, & Fairbanks Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Hank Nuwer’s blog includes his frequent published newspaper columns.
Hank Nuwer began keeping a database about hazing deaths in 1975 and maintains the Hazing Deaths database. The first shorter database appeared in his article for Human Behavior magazine in 1978. His first hard-hitting, book-length investigation of hazing deaths appeared in 1990; the title was Broken Pledges: the Deadly Rite of Hazing.
In 2022, he advised Ball State University’s “Inform Muncie” magazine and taught one course of journalism on campus as an adjunct professor.
He also was a visiting professor at the University of Richmond (Virginia) for two years and advised one of the first collegiate online magazines.
He holds a master’s degree with honors in English from New Mexico Highlands University with election to Phi Kappa Phi national honor society. He also has taken creative writing classes in literary nonfiction and fiction at Hamline University. His undergraduate degree is from Buffalo State University. He is a 1999 Outstanding Buffalo State University alumnus (1999) and a 2006 honorary doctorate recipient from Buff State. He is also a member of Alpha Lambda Delta honor society and the Order of Omega Honor Society,
He has written additional books on the topic of hazing in society including Hazing: Destroying Young Lives, Wrongs of Passage, High School Hazing, and The Hazing Reader.His book, Rendezvousing with Contemporary Authors, has interviews with David Mamet, William Least Heat Moon, and many other writers. Many of the interviews were reprinted in book collections dedicated to interviews with authors.
He has contributed articles to The Quill magazine, Limberlost Review and The Conversation. Other bylines of his over the years appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Santa Fe New Mexican, Orlando Sentinel, Buffalo Courier-Express and other newspapers. He has written books suitable for teens including his novel Sons of the Dawn, plus the nonfiction books High School Hazing, The Legend of Jesse Owens, Steroids and To the Young Writer.
Hank 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 elected him in 2010 to the BSU Journalism Hall of Fame.
He is married to Malgorzata (Gosia) Wroblewska-Nuwer. He has two grown sons and two grandchildren. Gosia has one grown daughter, a Ph.D. in biology from Cambridge.
The couple lives in Fairbanks, Alaska; Warsaw, Poland; & Union City, Indiana.
Charitable work: He contributes regularly to HazingPrevention and the Buffalo State College Hank Nuwer Collection and BSC Hazing Collection managed by BSC archivist Daniel DiLandro.
Link to the Buffalo State Hank Nuwer Hazing Collection.
Hank’s journalism to eradicate hazing was honored by the NGLA and HazingPrevention.org