McGill has plenty of famous alumni, from prime ministers to Grammy winners, but who is the greatest of them all?  With McGill”s 190th anniversary approaching, the Alumni Association has decided to seek the answer to this question.

The Alumni Association began its search for the greatest McGillian by creating an area on its website where anyone with a past or present McGill connection staff, faculty, and students could nominate any McGillian they think is most important. This has led to some predictable nominations, such as James McGill and William Shatner, but also to more creative ones—”The Future McGillian”—and unexpected ones, such as “The Three Bares Statue.”

“Part of this is all in the fun. We’ve tried to be lighthearted about it,” said Daniel Chonchol, a representative from the Alumni Association. “It’s a fun way to look and reflect on our history.”

Voters have nominated a number of professors, he added.

“It’s been really interesting to see so many professors nominated, which I think is really a nod to the quality of education at McGill,” he said.

The Alumni Association intends the competition to be an opportunity for those who have moved on from the university to reconnect with it.

“One of the major points of the contest is [to let] anyone who has graduated from McGill say, ‘I’m part of this community, I’m part of this great illustrious history,'” Chonchol said.

Nominations will be accepted on the Alumni Association website until April 30. Then, the association will decide which nominations have qualified for the “final” round of voting, which will take place over the summer. The winner will be announced sometime late this year.

The Alumni Association also plans to use the nominations to help make an interactive time-line of McGill history, which will eventually be available online.