national dialogue quarter at any time for the first time since thea ward of the peace prize. it help build democracy since the revolution four years ago. there's more on our website. the address al jazeera america -- aljazeera.com >> definitely has a lot to do with the pressure. >> "america tonight"'s "america tonight"'s lisa fletcher with those left behind after a suicide on campus. >> thanks for joining us, i'm joie chen. one of the best kept secrets on

college and university campuses is the number who don't come home. somewhere during those four years something has gone terribly wrong and suicide becomes their solution. 1100 college kids every year in the united states die by suicide. and reports show thousands more think about it. which raises the question: are institutions of higher learning thinking about it enough? "america tonight's" lisa fletcher now, with an in depth look. >> all right, so this is tim's room. >> reporter: the undeniable love of a mother for her child is evident in a person's home. his room is untouched. >> i can't tell you how many times i've broke down, can't tell you how many times and i will continue to do that. you know i have conversations

with him in this room. i can't talk about this anymore . >> katherineham let sat down with "america tonight" just five months after she learned her only child had passed away. with no answers to why he made the unthinkable choice. >> so when you were firtime for -- aljazeera.com notified of his disappearance,-m what was going through your head? >> immediately, i was looking for him, and we filed a police report right away. it never crossed my mind that my child would die by suicide. and it never dawned on me that he would jump off a bridge. so much so, that whield we were while we were searching in the washington heights area, i remember saying to someone, well at least we know something, we know he didn't jump.

the irony of that statement is critically important for other parents. because the stereotype of what suicide looks like is not really what it is. i never knew that suicide was the number 2 cause of death for college students. i never knew that. >> reporter: what katherine did know is that for two years timothy had been a gifted student-athlete at the university of pennsylvania. he set school records impressing his coaches and teammates but in his sophomore year his behavior started to change. >> i may or may not be there i have a paper -- >> he was already seeing mental health professionals privately at the request of his parents. but when they learned he had been removed from his beloved track team after missing practices, the concerned parents pulled their son from school to take a leave of absence in september of 2014. >> i wish i did know more about it in hind siding because i feel

responsible as his mom. you know as his mother i think i bare the ultimate responsibility for what happens to my son. not knowing mental health, not understanding you know the changes i'm not quite sure what they do there. what resources they have available. >> reporter: the family would celebrate christmas together. the following day, timothy left their teaneck new jersey home and never returned. six months later on may 29th, this year, police discovered his body in the hudson river. timothy had jumped from the george washington bridge. his death was ruled a suicide. >> i spent six months following his disappearance talking to his friends, his teammates, learning about who he is and understanding. >> tim khan covered timothy's case for student newspaper. >> at what point did this really

50i campuses in this country is surprising. "america tonight's" lisa fletcher continues the story as grieving friends and families look to universities for help and guidance only to come up empty handed. >> reporter: katherineham let lost her only son timothy to suicide just five months ago. he was a gifted student and ran

track at the university of pennsylvania. >> right now it feels like hell on earth but i can tell you and anybody else that i know what heaven feels like. ra because there has fobecause n nothing more beautiful than having a child we created out of love. and to love him and share his earthly presence. >> congratulations! >> how do you feel? >> and have a family. >> you're going. >> this is an interview. >> a finance major named david khan had been reporting on her son's untimely death for u penn's newspaper. the two formed an unlikely bond when this young student decided to break down the stigma of mental illness and a grieving mother turned the loss of her only child into change. >> the reality is that my son died by suicide. he was a student there.

and hopefully he will be the last student at penn to die by suicide. that's the goal. let's make timothyham let the last student at upenn to die by suicide. >> the result of their collaboration, theham let read mental health initiative also by linda douglas whose son theer dor reed die theodorereed died by suicide. the ability to schedule appointments online, and a focus on mental health during new student orientation. things that were not available to katherine's son. >> we have not called down, you would think these things happen and people forget about them and you move on but people have not moved on. >> students delivered this initiative to president amy gutman by a march. >> what's powerful of this venue

is this is where we walked, this is the center of campus, this is through way through which everyone passes. the silent march has lots of power, people aren't speaking, marched through the center of campus. everyone is affected by this issuing, every person we passed by were affected by this issue, they are all silenced. they can't talk about it, not competent enough to talk about it. the silence captured that power. >> reporter: "america tonight" repeatedly requested interviews with the university. we reached out to the head of the counseling and psychological services and were told that his schedule was, quote, full. as for upenn's president, we were told her schedule is booked many a weeks in some cases months in advance. >> we had a letter signed by over 500 people now including the parents of two suicide victims including the class

presidents every year head of the sorority council, fraternity council. all the students got together after timothy watts found an wat together and said it's time for change. we're not going to lay out every single thing you have to do but we want a framework and a conversation about it. >> the university of pennsylvania is not alone. six students died at mit in four months. cornell received the dubious name of suicide school. dr. greg yields is the director of counseling and suicide services at cornell. >> one of the things you found around suicide is it's a rare event and influenced by contagion and clustering. two factors in the research if one person creates a suicide, it is a risk for everyone else in this population. it conveys this social message

if i'm feeling this kind of pain maybe it's the okay way to deal with it. >> 90% of the students who die by suicide were not receiving help from college counseling centers. a statistic katherine is determined to change. >> our family is devastated, other student families have been devastated. we certainly have the intellectual fire power and the resources that we can do better. the goal is to make sure that there are meaningful changes so that parents are going to their children's graduations and not to their funerals. >> one in 10 college students seriously considers suicide. and like timothy who was dealing with the stress of academics and athletics, many who the have those thoughts won't tell anyone. the the suicide rate among young adults ages 15 to 24 has tripled

since the 1950s. that's an increase of over 200%. it is the second most common cause of death among college students. dr. thomas eels has been a in the system for over two years. >> if our counselor is are doing that, there is less resource he to provide on going treatment and care. how many staff members should you have? from the people who do this work, they're in it because they want to do it and they find it meaningful, not making billions of dollars. >> katherine knew nothing about suicide before her son's death. but she is determined to change that for others. to honor his memory. >> you became aware of your son's death just five months ago. >> uh-huh. >> your compose your is stunning. where do you find the strength? >> there is not a day that i

don't absolutely cry and just, you know, just -- i miss him terribly. i look back on a conversation that i had with him when he was young. i said to him that you know, your life can be beautiful without me. i never thought that i would have to try have it the other way, where i have to try make a beautiful life without him. there's no reason why there should be anyone else in this situation. it's my son. i have to -- have to honor him. and i have to make him proud of me. he's got to be proud of his mama. he's got to be. >> joining us now "america tonight's" lisa fletcher. lisa this is such a disturbing and sad thing to see, kids with such sad potential and kids

coined a flame for their face i guess. >> penn face, duck face, which means the same thing, a facade, that makes us look happy and well adjusted. but there is such a face, a name for it. >> other people realize this. we see such an impact on social media on everything else that involves our young people today, surely that has part of it. >> katherine hamlet, calls facebook, fakebook. these kids were at the top of their game and now they're at these highly competitive universities and they may be number 10 or number 100, don't know how to deal with it, they want to put out a n image on

facebook, they are trying to achieve these unachievable standards. some think that contributes to the depression and anxiety and the suicidal thoughts. >> the notion of an initiative that would lay out some guidelines of projections what people should do, where does that stand? >> the hamlet reed initiative, you remember david khan and others took that to president gutman. here's a framework, let's talk about it. one of the deadlines they set was for the university to weigh in on the idea of a counselor being assigned to every new student. justhat came and went and not a peep from the university on it. >> so the university is not only unwilling to speak to the students about it, and all those who took the initiative on their own, but unwilling to talk to you, to the media openly about what's going on. >> and unwilling to talk to

parents. everyone we talked to had the same experience. and it's unfortunate. because we did talk to the head of psychological counseling at cornell that said, we had this issue a couple of years ago and now they're dealing with it head on, they're trying meet these kids where they are and they are dealing with the kids very directly. they're dealing with the families very directly and they're trying to be as transparent as possible. their belief is with that transparency becomes an acceptance of this issue just like any other sickness someone might have. >> just a quick note here, the university of pennsylvania wasn't willing to talk to you, they were too busy. >> they were too busy to talk to us. their counseling department was too busy to talk to us. here's an interesting point. after we were told no, our producer went to that unit and the counselor said my schedule is wide open.

>> aiming to stop sex crimes on campus by drawing a tight circle of security. and somewhere out there. tuesday on "america tonight," we look off the coast of california to trouble brewing. a monster weather system hidden beneath waves, el nino. tuesday on malasian. "america tonight."

>> our coverage of sex crimes on campus has focused over the last two-plus years on the growing number of reports and the concern about how to stop those assaults. the solutions as so many things these days may come from

technology and maybe on the phone. "america tonight's" sarah hoye found there's an app for that in williams town, massachusetts. >> it is a new school year in northwest massachusetts. settling into school includes the familiar, meeting fellow students shortcuts around the campus and dealing with a familiar problem, campus sexual assault. >> no one's begun talking about it until recently, i think sexual assault on college campuses has become such a big issue and it's been brought so far into the light that i hope that work continues to be done on it and education continues to happen. because the thing is that sexual assault doesn't just happen on accident. >> williams made headlines when it was accused of handling a 2010 on campus rate.

title 9 complaints put schools at risk of losing federal funding and internal williams survey revealed, 45 to 50 rapes occur at the college each year. administrators admit they have a lot of work to do. >> when we think about data the only acceptable prevalence number is zero. we have to work towards that, we then start having conversations about what is the acceptable level of sexual violence and there isn't one. >> part of the school's response away to appoint meg bisson. >> you do want to hope that change is for the better. >> one of the significant changes, one that is quite remarkable over 10 years which is long not that long, if we had been having the conversation in 2001, 2003, 2005, about intervening in situations what people would have said is it's not my business.

>> another part of the school's response: make it everyone's business. to do that williams became the first school in the country to use a new social media app, circle of six. circle of 6 was developed as part of the white house challenge, apps for abuse. tools to help sexual assault and dating violence. an app that involves one's friends in preventing assault was a key requirement. >> choose six people and we wrote preprogrammed text messages, come and get me i need help. with your address, gps location, come and interrupt me, i need help, you as a user choose who is important to you, who you trust. >> at the heart of circle of 6, student intervention. the idea, if you see something, say something to each other

before things get out of hand. all in-coming freshmen at williams are asked to download the app which is free to students. while specific data is anonymous, privacy is part of the app. the school can check general patterns such as spikes and usages on particularly weekends like halloween. which options are used most often, i need to talk is the number 1 button. apps show that students will use technology to call on their friends for help long before they call the police. >> why are authorities or police in general the last stop after a sexual assault? >> i wish more people understood that. i think there's a lot of emphasis on police involvement in terms of rape and i think reporting is important. but i think what people don't understand is how tricky, dangerous, unsafe it can feel to go to the police.

if you make a report and that becomes something like it's taken out of your hands and a victim wants to feel like she has control over her situation. >> reporter: the app is designed to foster an ongoing conversation not only among students but within the school administration as well. >> this is not one week at orientation. helping kids navigate college life, sexuality relationships needs to be done constantly. but schools have to prioritize this. they can't say well, you know we did our orientation programming and now it's october so we're done. >> reporter: a survey at williams last year showed that relying on friends to not become a victim of sexual assault was already becoming a trend, a cultural shift. >> you can see that 82% of our students have helped a friend get home safely if they seemed

very box caited. intoxicated. >> change happens slowly and then seemingly all at once. those at williams say using technology and friendship to create a safer campus is an idea whose time has come. sarah hoye, al jazeera, williams williamstown, massachusetts. >> we hope it makes a big difference. tell us what you think at aljazeera.com/americatonight. talk to us on twitter or facebook and come back. we'll have more of "america tonight," tomorrohristmas island this is our american story. this is america tonight.

e.u. election observers say the poll in myanmar was transparent, but not without some flaws. hello there. you're watching al jazeera. live from our headquarters in doha. also coming up russia says it's not surprised about doping allegations amongst its athletes but denies state involvement. the u.n. calls for tough action from preventing burundi to escalating into an ethnic conflict. thousands of refugees are saying they're being isolated and being kept away