Madison Bugg, one of the top high school volleyball setters in the country, has committed to Stanford.

We're hearing a lot these days about science and medical research and how a big chunk of the now-approved economic stimulus money will trickle down to the nation's research universities.

In the New York Times this week, a Stanford University researcher paints a very good, very clear picture of what life is like for scientists who essentially have to beg for money every few years or risk not getting paid.

He writes in part:

 It strikes me as one of the ironies of modern life that professorial faculty members, who by and large lean to the left politically, accept such a brutal free-market approach to their livelihood. If they can’t raise grants to support their research every year, they won’t get paid. So not only do they have to worry about publish or perish, it’s also funding or famine, in the very real sense that without a grant there might not be food on the family dinner table!

 Here's the whole column.

At Stanford University, the  top adminstrators dealing with budget cuts are leading by example.

How? By chopping their salaries 10 percent.