Hank Nuwer

Hank Nuwer is an Alaska author, columnist and journalist 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 has an M.A. from New Mexico Highlands University and a B.S. in English from Buffalo State University. His papers are collected at the Buffalo State Butler Library.

He has an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from his Alma Mater and is a 1999 Distinguished Buffalo State Alumnus. He spoke to graduate students at BSU as a Commencement speaker in 2006 when he received his honorary doctorate.

He writes books and weekly columns for the Cordova Times in Alaska. His main residence is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with additional acres in remote Alaska. He married Gosia Nuwer (Malgorzata Wroblewska-Nuwer) in 2017.

Latest: The Alaska Press Club in 2024 and 2025 awarded him its first prize Best Columnist and, in 2024, second place Best Humorist award.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, and a 2025 award fo Commentary from the Hoosier State Press Association.

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 is a scholar whose 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, James Dickey, Harry Crews, and Maurice Sendak. His magazine articles have included many adventures 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 first wrote about hazing for Human Behavior Magazine in 1975. He now is working on a scholarly biography of Kurt Vonnegut.

As a journalist, he also played first base in professional baseball games for the Montreal Expos' Denver Bears, the old Indianapolis Clowns, and the vintage baseball New York Mutuals.

As the manager of Buffalo State's champion 1967 soccer team, he was elected to the Buffalo State Athletics Hall of Fame.

His hobbies include stamp collecting, reading international authors, and acting in Alaska theater.

Most recently he played Harry Fatt from Waiting for Lefty at the Univ. of Alaska, Ed Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, Santa/Mulch/Wendell in Ken Ludwig's Twas the Night Before Christmas, 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 the Moving Man in Raisin in the Sun. 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 in 1969 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. UB faculty members included actor Morris Carnovsky, scholar Alan Dorner and Michael Kahn. Nuwer acted in the two Shakespeare Institute plays with James W. Parker of Virginia Commonwealth University.

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, his NMHU Theatre group was mentored by TV actor Joe Campanella.

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.

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.

Hank Nuwer previously 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). He currently teaches during the 2025-2026 school year as an adjunct in journalism at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

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 Omega, Western Writers of America, Western American Literature, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Alaska Press Club.

Eighty years old on his next birthday, Nuwer's writing, teaching, and activism goals have no set time clock.