Presidents College School of Law closed after nine years Thursday, the victim of its inability to raise the millions it needed to operate and seek accreditation for its law degrees.

But the dream of the school's founder, the late Willard Garvey, will continue in the Garvey Institute of Law, which will be established at Friends University.

The institute, being created through a $2 million endowment from the Garvey family, will offer a master's program in law.

The 50,000-square-foot Presidents College building at Market and William will be sold, along with its contents, from furniture to law journals, said Dixie Madden, the college's dean. All proceeds will go to the Garvey Institute.

Three of Presidents College's six full-time professors have already made other career plans, she said, but she didn't know whether the new institute would hire the others. She said she will return to her private law practice.

The idea for the institute came from Friends president Biff Green, who said Thursday that it came about in conversations with Madden and Jean Garvey, Willard Garvey's widow.

Green said the master's program will be for people who are "interested in understanding what the law means for their business or their company."

The institute also will play a role in strengthening Friends' other master's programs that may contain elements of law.

"All of us can be enhanced by understanding the law a little bit more," Green said.

Friends spokeswoman Gisele McMinimy said staffing at the institute has not been discussed.

"A lot of that is still being worked out," she said, including where the institute would be located on campus.

The master's program must first be created, McMinimy said. She said the institute could begin within the year.

Madden said the institute will perpetuate Garvey's goal of offering a legal education in the Wichita area, which led to the law school's founding in 1994. He died last year.

Jean Garvey, who has been helping underwrite Presidents College's costs since his death, agreed.

"This program with Friends is really more in line with what Willard's real interest was," she said. "Not just helping to create more lawyers but to promote these ideas of strong ethics and high principles."

The master's program might reach more people through Friends, she added.

Presidents College announced early this year that it had enough money to operate only until May 31.

The college needed to raise at least $15 million over the next year to begin meeting the American Bar Association's accrediting standards, which would require a bigger building, more faculty and an expanded law library.

Without accreditation, the school's graduates cannot take the state bar exam and become practicing lawyers.

The board delayed a decision two months ago when students said they wanted to try to raise $5 million by July 31.

Annette Scheaffer, president of the Student Bar Association and a recent graduate, said the students had some leads for large donations, but possible donors were already committed to other projects.

Abdul Arif, a Wichita businessman who just graduated from Presidents College, said raising the millions was impossible. He said a master's program at Friends is better than no program at all.

"Under the circumstances, this is the best possible outcome," he said.

Longtime board member and adjunct professor Bob Martin said the decision to close was difficult but inevitable.

"We tried every way we knew to reach into quarters, to try to raise the money," Martin said. "We weren't able to do it."