Student death linked to failed thesis

• Source: Global Times
• [10:33 June 12 2010]
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By Zhang Cao

Police have ruled out murder in the case of a female final-year undergraduate student at East China Normal University (ECNU), who was found dead in her dorm room on Thursday morning, although the cause not yet been determined.

"Police are still investigating the case, although they have ruled out murder," Jiang Bingbing, the deputy manager of the press office of ECNU, told the Global Times Friday.

Jiang said that the student's parents have come to the university campus, but refused to provide any more details.

The victim lived on the third floor of the No 7 student dormitory on the campus on Zhongshan Road North.

A student surnamed He majoring in psychology, who lives in the same dorm, said she saw several police cars outside the dorm on Thursday morning.

"I heard that her teacher did not like her graduation thesis, so she became desperate and drank some poison," she said.

A teacher from the graduate management office, who asked to remain anonymous, said the deceased was a student of the psychology department. "She didn't get enough academic credits, and her teacher was not satisfied with her thesis," he said. "But it's also possible that she died suddenly due to health problems, because we didn't find a suicide note or medicine bottle beside her body."

According to He, the deceased's three roommates saw her sleeping from 5 pm the day before. At 5 am the next morning, they alerted staff when they saw that the girl was still lying on the bed in the same position.

The police station at the ECNU campus refused to comment on the incident.

Suicide has become a big issue on Shanghai campuses. A report from the Shanghai Mu-nicipal Education Commission released at the end of March revealed that 21 college students attempted suicide last year in Shanghai, of whom 13 died. The report said that suicide is the number one cause of non-health condition-related deaths on campuses in Shanghai.