The full text of an SMS I received at 11:13am this morning:

Please check your campus e-mail for a message from the president about a homicide that occurred last night on S. Ellis Ave.

The text message was the first non-test output of an emergency response system put in place at the U. of C. after the Virginia Tech shootings. The email, from U. of C. president Robert Zimmerman, related these further details:

It is with the greatest possible sadness that I write to inform you of the tragic killing of one of our graduate students last night. Amadou Cisse, an international student completing his Ph.D. degree in chemistry, was shot and killed at 1:26 a.m. in the street near 6120 S. Ellis Ave. We are saddened and outraged by this terrible event, and our hearts go out to the student’s family, friends, colleagues and neighbors.

According to an article in today’s Tribune, Cisse was 28 29, a graduate student in chemistry from Senegal whose research examined atomic oxygen erosion. He successfully defended his dissertation last week, and was scheduled to receive his degree on December 7. The University will award his doctorate posthumously.

UPDATE (11/20/07):

From another article in today’s Tribune (which puts Cisse’s age at 29, not 28):

Senegalese officials today said Cisse was the son of a deceased military officer. His mother, two brothers and a sister live in Dakar, the nation’s capital.

“As a Muslim, she [his mother] said that what happened is from God,” said Sadio Cissokho, consul general of the Senegalese Embassy in Washington.

He said she is awaiting the return of her son’s body, which she wants to bury quickly in accordance with Muslim practice.

And:

Friends talked of the man’s promise, the warm and quiet personality behind the bright mind. Cisse was the eldest to a sister and brother and raised by his mother in Senegal after his father died when he was young, friends said. An exceptional student, he came to the U.S. to attend high school in New Mexico on scholarship.

At Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, he graduated with degrees in chemistry, physics and mathematics, said college friend Ken Chiang, who has known him for a decade.

“Amadou understood that he had been given an opportunity that many in Senegal, in Africa, do not have,” said Czerny Brasulle, director of multicultural affairs at Bates. “The taking of his life has resulted in the absence of someone who would have made a difference in the world.”

And:

On [the night he defended his dissertation], Cisse took a moment to enjoy how far he had come, smiling modestly as he stood among colleagues and friends at the small celebration in his honor, friends said.

“I finally saw him relax … at that party,” said Steven Sibener, a chemistry professor and his thesis adviser. “He had gotten to the mountaintop, and I was tremendously proud of him.”

In the professor’s office, a row of dissertations from previous doctoral students lined a shelf. Above them, empty bottles of champagne had been signed by each of his students. Cisse’s name was signed in blue ink on the most recent bottle.