Southern University, a football powerhouse among historically black colleges, needed a quarterback.
Previously, colleges needed to take out a copyright licence to photocopy, scan and record works to help them teach.
Karl Benson, commissioner of the W.A.C., said the N.F.L.'s decision to call off its games was the signal the colleges needed to skip the weekend.
Ebdon said universities and colleges needed to argue more powerfully to win support for part-time students, who are denied access to maintenance loans available to full-time students.
The Big East, a high-gloss, all-basketball-all-the-time conference founded in 1979, faced with an exodus of football-playing colleges, needed a high-profile football team to keep the conference intact.
This year, for the first time, it has sent detailed reports to all of its high schools, telling them just how many of their students who arrived at the city's public colleges needed remedial courses, as well as how many stayed enrolled after their first semester.
