Any topic (writer’s choice)

Exercise the methodology of Six Thinking Hats on an institutional challenge of great importanceand personal familiarity. A two- part exercise.

The Scenario: You are serving on an N YU T ask Force as a student representative advising NYU President Andrew Hamilton, NYU Provost Katy Fleming, and the Deans of the various schools about how to organize the 2020-2021 academic year.
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to continue to impact how instruction is delivered andresearchconducted. Theuniversityleadersarecommittedtoassuringthewell- being of its students, faculty, and staff. Their concerns include protecting faculty and administrators and students who may have health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable, as well as those faculty and administrators whose age puts them into the at-risk category. They are also very concerned about the difficulties faced by international students, not just because of the corona virus–but because of travel challenges and visa-matters related to the closure of many U.S. consulates and new regulations.
NYUs leaders formed the Task Force primarily to make recommendations about academic matters. Most Task Force members believe that in-person teaching and learning is preferable to remote learning, but accept that remote learning can still provide a viable educational experience for students when used to its full capacity.
In terms of how the New York campus might be organized physically, until medications are available for treatment and a vaccine is developed for prevention of the illness probably 12 to 18 months awayto prevent the risk of disease, some forms of social distancing will continue to be required, at least in the Fall. Dormitories that normally have two or more students to a room will have to assure private rooms for each student. Classrooms will have to be structured to allow at least 6 feet between students, greatly limiting class size and probably requiring multiples sections of courses to be run to accommodate curricular needs.
Its probable that the Fall semester is likely to be the most seriously disrupted. Might NYU have to require a different expectation of summer instruction, and create a full summer term in 2021 to allow students to complete their required coursework that would otherwise have been taken in fall and spring–so that academic life can return to its traditional model for all cohorts of students beginning in the fall of 2021? Can remote learning and face-to-face instruction operate in parallel?
These are some of the issues and ideas in the air that involve your Task Force. All deliberations are being conducted using the Six Thinking Hat Methodology. As participants, each of you is assigned to five groups: white hat, yellow hat, black hat, red hat and green hat thinking groups.

Your assignment here. Imagine that you are participating in each group, and offering observations, needed data (or data that needs to found), ideas, impediments to consider, etc. (Because you are working ALONE on this take-home assignment, you dont have to worry if your classmates and fellow Task Force members are making the same points.) So this is what you are expected to do:
Part one: Make 4 lists, and enter at least four (4) elements/ideas/issues that would fit into
1) White Hat thinking 2) Yellow Hat thinking 3) Black Hat thinking 4) Red Hat thinking.
Be as brief as possible, but as complete as necessary. (In short, your remarks should be self-explanatory.)
Part two: Afterrepeat, after–you finish your lists, then put on the Green Hat. Attempt to come up with a 250-word summary Green Hat Thinking plan that builds on and works to reconcile the observations, warnings and (Yellow Hat) ideas that you came up with in your four lists. The objective is to suggest an approach that would help the Task Force as a whole develop the most feasible resumption of academic activities that would benefit the most (and adversely affect the fewest) members of the NYU community.