was the home of the Students' Union (later known as the Students' Association), the main refectory and Harry's Bar. The main redbrick building contained a student self-service café, known as the Readers' Digest. A prominent feature of the student calendar from the 1960s onwards was the Bogle Stroll. This was a sponsored walk for charity which was held annually during Rag Week. Each year, hundreds of students followed the circular route which started and finished at the UMIST campus. The tradition continues at the University of Manchester. Sports facilities included a gymnasium in the main building, the large assembly hall, the MUTECH playing fields and the Sugden Sports Centre (jointly owned by UMIST and the Metropolitan University and opened in 1998). The director of sport administered the facilities, recreation classes and inter-departmental competitions. The athletic union was responsible for administering the grant-aided clubs and inter-varsity teams. Achievements and evolution During the last quarter of the 20th century UMIST established a reputation as a major research-based university, performing well in the government's Research Assessment Exercise in 2001, and was well placed in various league tables. UMIST has won four Queen's Prizes for Higher and Further Education, two Prince of Wales' Awards for Innovation and two Queen's Award for Export Achievement. UMIST was instrumental in the founding of what is now the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Famous alumni include Nobel Laureate in nuclear physics Sir John Cockcroft, aeroplane pioneer Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, and designer of the Lancaster bomber Roy Chadwick, while famous academics include mathematicians Louis Joel Mordell, Hanna Neumann, Lewis Fry Richardson and Robin Bullough, and the physicist Henry Lipson. Other notable alumni include Margaret Beckett, a politician who in 2006 became Foreign Secretary. The later 20th century saw UMIST diminishing its formal connections with Manchester University. In 1994 most of the remaining institutional ties with the Victoria University of Manchester were severed, as new legislation allowed UMIST to become a fully autonomous university with powers to award its own degrees. The end of UMIST, 2004 UMIST, together with the Victoria University of Manchester ceased to exist on 1 October 2004, when they were combined in a new single University of Manchester. Terry Leahy, CEO of Tesco and alumnus was the last Chancellor of UMIST, and the Vice-Chancellor was a chemical engineer, John Garside. The merged university undertook a massive expansion and a £350 million capital investment