Stronger Together

Locked inside a Dallas storage unit sits decades-old, hand-written communication that helped propel Washburn University School of Law to its present-day financial prosperity. 

After waiting for a February snowstorm to melt away near his Texas home, Duke Dupre, jd ’73, h ’10, dug into his personal trove of correspondence with former Washburn Law deans, from Raymond Spring, ba ’57, jd ’59, in the 1970s to James Concannon, h ’24, in the 1990s to Dennis Honabach in the 2000s. 

Perhaps the most important letters from Dupre, who served on Washburn Law’s board of governors from 1994-2006, regarded his advocacy for a merger of the Washburn School of Law Foundation and the Washburn Endowment Association. At the time, Dupre, now a trustee emeritus of the Washburn University Alumni Association and Foundation, told anyone who would listen that the School of Law’s savings should be gaining more interest. 

“I just wanted them to start making more money,” Dupre said. “It was pitiful what we were earning. We didn’t have it properly invested. As lawyers, we’re great at making cases, defending cases and drawing documents, but as far as where to get the most money, we didn’t have the knowledge or time to sit down and manage the earnings. We asked the Foundation if they would invest it and manage it for us. They agreed, and for that, I’m very grateful.” 

In the early 2000s, the School of Law had its own foundation that managed the fundraising and the investment of its endowment. After much work and planning, the School of Law Foundation was folded into the WEA, which later changed its name to the Washburn University Foundation, and more recently, the Washburn University Alumni Association and Foundation after merging with the Washburn Alumni Association.

WUAFF now manages fundraising and investing the endowment for all of the university, as well as alumni relations with the Washburn Alumni Association and School of Law Alumni Association.

The merger quickly proved to be a smart decision that continues to look better with time. There were $294 million in total assets as of June 30, 2025, and according to the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments, WUAFF ranked in the top 50 of public institutions for endowment per student in recent years.

While there’s no arguing the bottom line now, after two decades of consistent growth, Dupre said concerns at the time were the School of Law could lose control of its own money and potentially become an afterthought to the university’s own priorities.

“We went out, the dean, myself and one of the justices, to various local bar associations, county or regional, and talked to Washburn Law alums about it,” he said. “They were afraid it would be merged and forgotten. But when we talked to them, there wasn’t much hostility, once they realized we weren’t in it for their money. I remember telling the Riley County Bar, ‘Do you want to manage it?’ The answer, of course, was no.” 

Dupre said a key player in the merger’s execution was JuliAnn Mazachek, now president of Washburn University.

“She was the person I dealt with,” he said. “She was head of the Foundation in those days. So, give your president a pat on the back.”

The merger helped lay the path for other unions. In 2014, the Washburn Alumni Association merged with the Washburn Foundation. Susie Hoffman, bba ’87, director of the Washburn Alumni Association, had originally raised questions about the move. But in 2021, when the School of Law Alumni Association started to consider joining the Washburn University Alumni Association and Foundation, Hoffman was one of the most vocal advocates for the partnership.

“We met with (Hoffman) and brought her to a board meeting because she went through the same thing,” said Lori Fink, jd ’85, then chair of the School of Law Alumni Association’s finance and budget committee. “She’d tell you she was originally a skeptic (when the Washburn University Alumni Association merged with the Washburn Foundation), but none of those concerns had come to fruition. It had worked seamlessly, and in that merger, the Alumni Association had good rapport with the Foundation and didn’t feel the least bit slighted.” 

Fink said when the merger happened, their experience was very similar to the ideal arrangement Hoffman described.

“Washburn Law still has an active role in how the funds are being utilized,” said Fink, now treasurer of the School of Law Alumni Association’s board of governors and School of Law Foundation. “In fact, we didn’t lose any autonomy in how things are managed, but benefited significantly in expertise, in management and in investment strategy.”

If anything, Fink said, the School of Law now feels like a more integral part of the university. She said when she attended Washburn in the 1980s, most law students simply came to one corner of campus, did their work, then returned home. Now, with a new building in place on a campus that’s setting record enrollments, the law school and university have formed a partnership that’s beneficial for all parties.

“We’ve been really fortunate with some of our endowments, but the investment strategy has also been really strong,” Fink said. “That’s why Washburn is able to do some great things that typically, smaller state universities haven’t had the opportunity to do. Even during market downturns, every time I report out on our finances, we still have good news to share, and that’s really critical.”