Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Duquesne University police officers maintained a high profile yesterday. These officers were standing watch outside the school's A.J. Palumbo Center, which was hosting a College Fair for prospective college students and their families. Click photo for larger image

Nathan Shearer was sitting on a bench outside his dormitory early yesterday when he heard shouting on Academic Walk.

Then he heard at least six gunshots.

"I just grabbed my friend and started screaming for everyone to get down," he said.

When the gunfire stopped, Mr. Shearer, a 19-year-old sophomore from Ellicott City, Md., ran into the Duquesne Towers dormitory, just yards from the shooting, and up to his room on the fifth floor. His curiosity got the best of him, though, and he went back downstairs.

In the dormitory lobby, he saw a man lying on the floor, bleeding from a wound in the arm or shoulder and mumbling incoherently.

By yesterday afternoon, Mr. Shearer was back on a bench outside Duquesne Towers, where maintenance crews had already cleaned up blood from the 2:15 a.m. shooting.

His nonchalance mirrored the mood at Duquesne: subdued, of course, but to an outsider, it was hard to tell that anything had happened on the compact campus on The Bluff.

The women's soccer game against Niagara University was postponed, at the request of Niagara, said Janice Geisler, 49, of Westfield Center, Ohio. She was visiting campus to watch her daughter, Shaina, 18, a freshman soccer player.

The shootings, which left five members of the basketball team wounded, did not change Mrs. Geisler's overall view of the university.

"Of course, being a parent, I'm a little apprehensive," she said. But, she added, every time she had been on the campus she had noticed a police presence. "I think it's still a good student body."

She noted that violence could happen anywhere.

"This is terrible, it's a tragedy," she said. "I just hope my daughter is smart enough and not in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Other parents visiting campus, including Maureen Griswold, 46, also said they did not fear for their children's safety.

"We just want her to make sure she's aware of her surroundings," Mrs. Griswold said of her daughter, freshman Jessica Griswold.

"We're from Youngstown [Ohio]," her husband, Gary, added with a laugh. To which his wife added, "We're used to it."

The only signs at the university that something had happened were an increased police presence, with officers turning away outsiders, and the proliferation of television news crews standing on public sidewalks, looking for someone to interview.

Students played ball, jogged around the track at McCloskey Field and sunned themselves outside their dorms.

At The Duquesne Duke, the campus newspaper, the staff held a noon meeting to discuss putting out a special four-page edition today to address the shootings.

Kelly Horein, 19, a sophomore from Lancaster, said she went to Mass on campus and the priests prayed for the speedy recovery of the basketball players. Then she went to the newspaper, where she is an assistant editor.

Ms. Horein said she was showering when the shootings occurred, and a friend ran into the bathroom to tell her what had happened. Then phones all over campus started ringing as students called their classmates to make sure they were all right.

"It's really shocking, but I don't think Duquesne could have done anything to prevent it," LeeAnne Guido, 19, a sophomore from Leetonia, Ohio, said as she studied yesterday afternoon on the lawn along Academic Walk.

"It's weird, because I heard about how safe the school is before I came here," said freshman soccer player Patrick McKinney, 18, of Dillsburg, York County.

There also was no apparent, immediate effect on the school's recruiting efforts. At the university's 40th annual College Gair, held in the A.J. Palumbo Center, tables for Duquesne University were lined four deep with prospective students seeking information about the school.

After visiting the College Fair, David and Jo Ellen Lang, of Washington, Pa., walked through campus with their daughter, Allyson, 16, a high school junior.

Mr. and Mrs. Lang are Duquesne graduates. Mrs. Lang said that while they have brought their daughter to The Bluff before, "today was an official visit."

Mrs. Lang said the shootings did not change her feelings about campus safety. "I'm not overly concerned," she said.