Student Commits Suicide at MIT

An 18-year-old Wellesley College student was found dead in an apparent suicide at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Monday night.

Roommates of the student called 911 after they found her body around 11 p.m. at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house where she had rented a room for the summer.

MIT police responded, along with Cambridge police, rescue and fire units and the Massachusetts State Police. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police found no indication of foul play. However Cambridge Police Department Spokesperson Frank Pasquarello would not comment on whether police found a suicide note. He did say that police are investigating the death as a suicide.

A cause of death will likely not be known for four to six weeks as the State Medical Examiner’s office completes its examination.

Grief counselors and MIT officials met with students and boarders in the ATO house this week.

“We are doing all we can to help the young people in the house cope with this terrible event in their midst,” MIT Senior Associate Dean Robert M. Randolph said.

MIT fraternities routinely rent rooms to outsiders—primarily students from other colleges who are spending the summer in the Boston area—to help defray costs during summer vacations, according to University officials.

The ATO fraternity house, located on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, has about 25 summer boarders, including five others from Wellesley. Ten members of the chapter are also living there during the summer.

“We at ATO are truly saddened by the unexpected death of one of our summer boarders,” the fraternity’s president, George Gluck, said in a press release. “Our hearts go out to her friends and family as well as to all others affected by this tragedy.”

The death comes just a week after an April death at MIT was ruled a suicide. That suicide was the sixth at the school in four years.

The Boston Globe reported this week that a draft report by a committee examining mental health issues at the renowned technology school recommended a complete overhaul of the school’s counseling services and the appointment of a new dean to oversee mental health services.

An MIT spokesperson refused to comment on when the final report would be issued.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.