The Illinois Student Senate (ISS) discussed housing plans as well as the ongoing negotiations between the Graduate Employees Organization and the University Wednesday evening,

University Housing Director Jack Collins addressed ISS to talk about issues ranging from future plans to the H1N1 virus.

“By 2012, Garner Hall will be demolished,” he added.

He said that within the next 15 years the entire six-pack will be demolished and replaced with a new housing unit.

Collins also discussed where international and out-of-state students who have contracted H1N1 virus stay. He said University Housing places them in separate apartment buildings and that workers from University Housing were delivering meals to those students who were in isolation.

“We have had scores of students do this,” Collins said. “However, most of them go home.”

The ISS also discussed a resolution that requested the “Senate to urge the several academic departments to withhold retribution toward those students who would choose to participate in a potential work action.”

Carey Ash, ISS internal vice president, said graduate students have worked with the GEO for the past six months to revise their contracts that would provide a higher wage. He said he introduced this resolution to urge ISS to pressure the U-C senate to force University officials and the GEO to come to a peaceful negotiation.

“This resolution acknowledges that these people have rights to exercise peaceful assembly and protest,” Ash said.

David Wall, external vice president, said that if the graduate students strike, the campus would cease to function.

“This negotiation must be done,” Wall said.