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In the days before his death, 18-year-old Cameron Bruce was the life of the party.

Barely one week into his university career, everyone in Victoria Hall, the largest of Queens University's dorms, seemed to know the young American.

"He was definitely an example of everything you'd hope for in a first-year engineering student," said Liz, one of those new friends. "He was doing everything you expect during Frosh week."

At Queen's those frosh expectations include a sharp mind paired with a willingness to climb greased poles, get pelted with an oatmeal-and-flour concoction called thunder-sludge and guzzle boat-loads of alcohol - a pattern that is attracted fresh scrutiny in light of Mr. Bruce's death.

Investigators are still piecing together the events leading up to Mr. Bruce's strange death early on Monday morning, but say it likely resulted from a fall.

The university is now exploring whether it should limit the height of window openings in all residential buildings, according to John Pierce, Associate Vice-Principal and Dean of Student Affairs.

Friends of Mr. Bruce and the police suggested the plunge was accidental, not the result of foul play or suicide.

"It's obvious he fell from a height. We're still trying to piece it together, but that's the likely what the cause is," said Detective Nancy McDonald of Kingston police, who is still awaiting test results that would show whether Mr. Bruce was intoxicated. "We don't know for sure how he ended up on the ground."

Friends and acquaintances interviewed on campus could say little about Mr. Bruce's final hours, saying only that Mr. Bruce's roommate was slumbering soundly when he arrived home in the early evening. They did not believe there was a party or a fight in the room.

He was only discovered when group of Queen's rugby students headed to practice stumbled upon the body just after 6 a.m. Monday morning - the first official day of classes. The body was lying in a grassy patch behind Victoria Hall, directly below D-wing, the area of the building where Mr. Bruce resided.

"It was really disturbing and I don't really want to talk about it," said Grant Clark, who discovered the body. "It's still stuck in my head."

It was the tragic end to a merry week for Mr. Bruce, the son of Iain Bruce, an executive with the Wall Street firm AMBAC Assurance Corp.

As a first-year engineering student, Mr. Bruce has shaved his head, penned the last two lines of a frosh song and helped a team of fellow first-year students scurry up a greased pole - all rites of passage in the department.

Like most other students on campus, he also drank.

"He was going all out that week," said Liz, who refused to provide her last name. "He had the crazy hair going. He was into it."

Queen's has long has a reputation for revelry. Keeping order around frosh festivities in 2008 cost the local police force an extra $22,500. The policing bill for the annual homecoming celebration tops $200,000.

Mr. Bruce would have been well acquainted with the school's reputation. The elder Mr. Bruce graduated from Queen's in 1981 and sits on the Queen's School of Business board of advisers, which includes Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon and Jerry del Missier, president of Barclays Capital.

The school's administration has taken steps to quell the rowdiness in recent years, cancelling some of the more drunken events and closely monitoring others, said Mr. Pierce.

"All campuses face the problem of alcohol consumption and we are dealing with it pro-actively," he said, adding that he is striking a task force to determine how deaths such as Mr. Bruce's can be prevented in the future. "In first year especially, students face a lot of temptations and challenges and we want to be there to help them with those tough decisions."

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