May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Police are searching for suspects after a man in his early 20s was shot in the abdomen near a Harvard University dormitory, the second shooting at a U.S. college in two weeks.

The victim, who was wounded near Kirkland House at about 5 p.m. local time yesterday, wasn’t a student at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school, said Tom Conley, house master and Romance languages professor.

Cambridge Police Sergeant James DeFrancesco said today he can’t release any new information on the case until it is cleared by Middlesex County District Attorney Gerard Leone’s office. Leone’s spokesman, Corey Welford, said he didn’t have an immediate comment.

Harvard University President Drew Faust met with students at the dormitory in an attempt to ease their fears, senior Bryant Bonner said in a telephone interview. The university said in a statement the shooting was probably an isolated incident and the suspects had fled the area.

The university has also made counselors available to students in the dorm, according to a statement.

Bonner said he was studying for a final when he “heard a series of bangs. I thought it was the lids of trash cans outside.”

Men Seen Fleeing

He saw the men flee and wasn’t close enough to get a good description of them.

“Everyone is a little on edge,” he said.

The university today put out an advisory reporting a student was robbed of cash and an iPod six hours after the shooting outside the Adams House dormitory, about 1,500 feet (457 meters) from Kirkland House. The masked robber was carrying a knife, the advisory said.

“It wasn’t connected,” said Andrea Flores, president of Undergraduate Council, the student government. “But it was an armed robbery. I don’t know all the details yet.”

Members of the community were told to go about their business as usual. Harvard’s spokesman, John Longbrake, said the school had no additional comment.

Earlier this month, Johanna Justin-Jinich, 21, was shot dead at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) southwest of Cambridge. Yesterday’s incident comes six years after a Harvard graduate student murdered a man in a fight and 14 years after a murder-suicide claimed the lives of two undergraduates at the college.

Victim’s Condition Stable

DeFrancesco said the shooting victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, suffered an abdominal wound and is in a stable condition. He said police haven’t been able to interview the man.

The victim was taken to a Harvard teaching hospital, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, according to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper. The hospital declined to comment on the report.

Students intend to go on with a rally planned for today, Flores said. The protest is against budget cuts that would eliminate a number of programs, including a late-night campus shuttle students say is needed to ensure their safety.

“The rally is definitely still on,” Flores said by telephone. “People feel even more now that issues of safety are going to be salient.”

Richest U.S. College

Harvard, a member of the eight-school Ivy League, is the richest U.S. college. Its endowment, valued at $36.9 billion on June 30, fell 22 percent from July 1 through Oct. 31. The university, founded in 1636, claims eight U.S. presidents among its alumni including George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Kirkland House, one of 12 undergraduate dormitories, is on Dunster Street, about a quarter mile from Harvard Yard. The three-story, co-ed dormitory has about 350 residents.

The street and the red-brick sidewalks on either side were cordoned with yellow police tape at the intersection with Mt. Auburn Street last night as university, local and state police searched the area for evidence.

The house is named after John Thornton Kirkland, who was Harvard’s president from 1810 to 1828. The dormitory is made up of several buildings and its library, Hick’s House, was used by George Washington’s officers during the siege of Boston in the American Revolution, according to the dorm’s Web site.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; Tom Moroney in Boston at tmorrone@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 19, 2009 11:24 EDT