If they act soon, graduate students will have an opportunity to designate their own building in the upcoming Hawthorn Court apartments.

Brian Anderson, member of the Graduate Student Senate, said at the GSS meeting Monday night that 72 beds have been reserved in Hawthorn Court. Although the deadline for applications was Jan. 31 for undergraduates, it has been extended until Feb. 7 for graduate students.

The current on campus housing for graduate students includes Buchanan Hall, which tends to be only temporary housing that can be leased by the month, and University Village, which is primarily for married couples and families, Anderson said.

“Between the handful at Buchanan and the couples in University Village, most choose to live off campus,” he said. “There’s nowhere on campus that they see suitable to live.”

Hawthorn Court has the option of either four private bedrooms or two shared bedrooms with either a nine-month or 12-month contract.

Students can list up to three roommates on the application and will be put in the apartments in groups of four, with smaller groups and individual students being put together with roommates after those have been filled.

“This would give them another option,” he said. “More people are interested in an apartment-style, but this way they don’t have to find roommates.”

If the 72 graduate-student beds available in Hawthorn Court are not filled, the rest will be filled with undergraduates, Anderson said.

“That’s just an economic issue that they can’t get around,” he said. “There’s no way they can reserve a whole building and have only half of it filled.”

Silvia Secchi, senator, said she has had bad experiences with on campus living in the past. She said she lived in Buchanan, where she was paired with an undergraduate roommate.

“She was nice, but we had very different lifestyles,” she said.

Secchi said she also lived in University Village, but since she was single, her apartment had very small bedrooms, and the walls were thin, causing her to be able to hear the neighbors.

She said she is now in off campus housing.

“If we can get decent university housing for single graduate students, especially for those studying abroad, it would be great,” she said.

Secchi said Hawthorn Court is nicely priced for new apartments.

“I am seriously considering moving in there,” she said.

Applications are available in the GSS office, room G44 of the East Student Office Space, and in Room 1215 of Friley Hall. Graduate students can check a box at the bottom stating “I will be a graduate student and would prefer a graduate-only building.”

GSS also discussed whether to pass a bill supporting a three or four-week break. A straw poll was taken, with 24 senators supporting the three-week break, 19 supporting the four-week break and two abstaining. The senators passed a bill encouraging the University Calendar Committee to support a three-week break.