Rival dorm? Good God man. When I was in college some of the idiots 'streaked'. No one on campus was pissed enough to go to pipe bombs because a rival dorm rangled them. Has college come to this?
Remember that grad student (Cinese guy? Physics?) that killed a rival a few years ago?
Yep, the old pipe bomb in the commode routine. Not to mention roman candles down the hallway and bottle rocket wars. No one get hurt, just a lot of noise.
At least that was my experience at Texas A&M circa 1980.
Although, this one sounds like a suicide. Even a small pipe bomb makes a lot of noise.