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Easter enews: Book a tour of The Edge

The staff enewsletter is brought to you by the Communications team. If you'd like to let us know what you think of the enewsletter, be it positive or negative, please send your comments to webcomms@leeds.ac.uk

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The Edge

The University's new sport, fitness and wellbeing facility opens on 4 May and all staff are invited to come and explore the building. The Edge is entirely self-financing and does not receive any subsidy. The new facilities are easily comparable to private sector provision, but at nearly half the price. Our early bird membership promotion is available until tomorrow, 31 March. For more information and to book a tour, see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/comms/newsletter/easter/edge.htm

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The Academy of Cultural Fellows

The Academy of Cultural Fellows, launched at a reception in the Parkinson Court on Tuesday, aims to become one of the foremost arts fellowship programmes, bringing creative artists from a range of disciplines to Leeds - and then supporting them to develop bold new work. Generous funding from the Future Fund of Opera North has enabled the creation of the first - the Dare Fellowship in Composition. For the full story see http://bit.ly/artistictalent

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Alumni donations on the increase

New gifts and pledges to the Alumni Annual Fund between August 2008 and February 2009 were just under £200,000; by the same time this academic year they had topped £350,000, an increase of 75%. During the same period, the number of alumni donors grew from 1,459 to 2,358, an increase of more than 60%. Since it was established in 2004, the Alumni Annual Fund has raised over £2.1 million and details of how it is helping to support the student experience at Leeds can be found here: https://alumni.leeds.ac.uk/Page.aspx?pid=995

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Voluntary Leavers' Scheme (VLS)

The closing date for the VLS is tomorrow, 31 March. To date we have received over 600 applications. We plan to make decisions in April and to let applicants know the outcome by mid-May (although there might be delay if the Visitor decides that we need to wait until he has reached a decision on the Petition about the role of Senate in organisational change).

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Grant award success

New awards totalling £65 million were won by the University in the first half of 2009/10 - an increase of 47% compared to the previous year.

Find out more at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/comms/newsletter/easter/grant.htm

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Budget

The government has acknowledged that universities are important in a 'strategy for economic growth'. It's too early to say how the additional student numbers for science and engineering subjects will affect us, or the shape of the efficiency improvements the government is seeking.

No 'new' cuts were announced in the budget, although major threats remain including; further cuts to higher education funding for 2010 onwards in a July Budget in the event of a change of government, and the likelihood of substantial cuts to 'non-protected' government departments through a Comprehensive Spending Review towards the end of the year.

All parties have also warned of further, far reaching cuts whatever party wins the election.

The cuts announced to date could equate cumulatively to a reduction in government funding for Leeds of between £14-18m a year by 2013.

The University continues to make the case for higher education, and campaigns vigorously against the possibility of further reductions, on top of the cuts totalling around £1bn that have already been announced.

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