BERKELEY — Graduation season is supposed to be the happiest of times around the UC Berkeley campus.

But Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said recent weeks have been the most tragic in his long career in university education.

Three times in the past three weeks the Cal community has been shaken by a tragic death, the most recent was Saturday when Alan Kaname Hamai, 22, who had graduated with a degree in anthropology the previous day, was found dead on the sidewalk below his Durant Avenue three-story building.

On May 3, Christopher Wootton, 21, a nuclear engineering student who was to graduate this month, was stabbed to death in front of a sorority a few blocks from campus. Police arrested a man in the case. On May 13, Maceo Smith, 33, a Berkeley man who was not a student, was shot in the 2500 block of Durant Avenue as graduates walked past the area to commencement in caps and mortarboards. A man has been arrested in the case.

"In all my years in higher education, this has been among the saddest and most tragic times for a university community that I have known," Birgeneau said in a statement released Sunday.

"Alan Hamai's death and the terrible loss of others in the Cal family this year has been deeply felt by a great many of us. As we mourn for our latest loss, I urge each of you to look after yourself and to reach out to support and care for your friends, classmates and coworkers."

An autopsy on Hamai completed earlier

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this week shows he died of multiple blunt injuries after the 30-foot fall, a spokesman from the Alameda County coroner's office said. Hamai was found on the sidewalk in front of 2605 Durant Ave. at 6:22 a.m. Saturday by a passerby, police said.

The coroner's office spokesman said toxicology tests — which will show if there was alcohol in Hamai's system at the time of his death — have been ordered. Results are expected in four to six weeks.

Berkeley police Officer Andrew Frankel said the case is still under investigation but appears to be an accident or suicide. There was no sign of a struggle and foul play is not suspected, he said.

Hamai had been with friends Friday night and was on the rooftop of the building as early as 3 a.m. Saturday, police said. One of his credit cards was found on the rooftop.

His parents were at the campus Friday for his graduation ceremony and were heading home to Southern California when they learned of their son's death.

Rosemary Joyce, head of the anthropology department, also sent out a statement this week. "There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow all of us feel about the death of Alan Hamai, one of our own. This loss, which would be tragic no matter what the timing, is doubly difficult when he was facing the beginning of the next phase of his life," she said.

Reach Kristin Bender at 510-208-6453 or kbender@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Reach her blog at www.ibabuzz.com/outtakes/.