At the beginning of the semester, we at The Poly thought that the Poly poll on our website, //www.poly.rpi.edu/, might be the best way to decide the winner.

As we thought about the process some more, however, we realized that there were some problems with this approach.

First, though the web polls are a valuable tool for soliciting input, they are hardly an accurate poll of our readership. The audience is self-selecting and nonrandom.

Second, there are no strong anti-tampering mechanisms in place. Someone with enough know-how and drive would be able to skew the results. Indeed, it is possible that this very scenario took place this year; this possibility is addressed in Corey Lagunowich’s Editor’s Corner on the Editorial page.

So we decided to use the web poll as a source of input into the decision, and refined the process a bit beyond that.

Using the online poll for input, the features staff of The Poly narrowed the list of nominees down to three finalists.

The features staff then passed these finalists to the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board then decided on Kevin Beattie after reviewing the contributions of each of the finalists.

All of the nominees for the Poly Person of the Year 2000 have made large contributions to RPI. Kevin Beattie, Bob Boylan, Rick Hartt, Ken Jansen, Bud Peterson, William Siegmann, Mark Smith, William St. John, and Ellen Young, this year’s nominees, will surely continue to contribute to the Rensselaer community in 2001 and beyond.

So next time you see Kevin or any of the other nominees on campus, stop and thank that person for their dedication to RPI, and think about other contributors to nominate next year.