3 UCI Deans Take Early Retirement : Cost cutting: Among the faculty leaving, under a program designed to cut the University of California payroll, is one of the school’s most distinguished scientists.

One of UC Irvine’s celebrated discoverers of ozone depletion and three of the university’s deans have decided to take early retirement, UCI officials said Tuesday.

The deans of fine arts, undergraduate studies and physical sciences, as well as the founding chairman of the chemistry department, F. Sherwood Rowland, turned in requests to retire early under a program that gives retirement incentives to staff and faculty members.

“A number of founding faculty are of retiring age,” UCI spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said. “The time is right for a lot of people.”

Two hundred UCI faculty members were eligible to retire in this year’s systemwide Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program to cut payroll costs, Young said. It is the third such early departure program offered in the UC system since 1991, but this is the first year that any UCI deans accepted the offer.

Benefits officials are still tabulating how many faculty members applied for the buyout in time for Friday’s deadline. Almost 140 staff members retired early when they were offered the package last fall, Young said.

In addition to Rowland, the Bren Professor of Chemistry and a highly regarded expert on the depletion of the ozone layer, those who are taking early retirement this year include: Robert Hickok, dean of the School of Fine Arts; Harold Moore, dean of the School of Physical Sciences; and Michael Butler, dean of Undergraduate Studies.

According to estimates, this latest round of UCI retirements means a savings of $7.8 million in salaries--$5.2 million for non-faculty members and about $2.6 million for faculty, Young said.

All those who accepted the package must retire by July 1, Young said. Officials intend to have acting deans in place in time for the start of the next school year, she added.

Among other requirements, Young said, those taking the package had to be at least 50 years old and have at least five years of service credit as of July 1 to be eligible.

Rowland said he will leave in late June to become the foreign secretary for the National Academy of Sciences, a four-year post. He has been one of the most celebrated icons of UCI’s faculty.

“When people hear the name UC Irvine, from California and the West and elsewhere, his (Rowland’s) is one of the first names that comes to mind,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, professor in the earth system science department.

“We’re not happy about all these early retirements,” Cicerone said. “All the campuses are hard-hit. But luckily, in Rowland’s case, he’s going to remain active here.”

Rowland in 1989 won the Japan Prize for his work in environmental sciences. Along with colleague Mario Molina, he discovered in 1974 that substances used in common aerosol sprays and solvents were damaging the ozone layer.

The 66-year-old Rowland said he likely will return to UCI late this year on a half-time basis. He began at UCI in 1964, he said, and hired the first faculty members at the university’s nascent chemistry department.

“If you were to call my office in January or February of next year, your chance of finding me would probably be the same as it would’ve been last January or February,” Rowland said.

Hickok, 67, who has spearheaded fine arts instruction at UCI since late 1988, said he is taking early retirement because it is “very attractive.”

“It’s a combination of my length of time (in this work) and the attractiveness of the retirement program, and the fact that this job is going to be a very tough one in the next few years--one which I’d just as well not do,” he said.

Hickok said he is leaving despite his approval of the university’s current leadership. He will continue to conduct orchestras and hopes to write books, he said.

“Economically, the school is not in good shape,” Hickok said. “Everybody knows that. A lot of people are leaving under the VERIP program, and that’s going to have an effect on faculty.”

Butler, 59, and Moore, 57, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Butler founded the Farm School, UCI’s experimental elementary school, 20 years ago. Moore, a chemist, has won two campus distinguished teaching awards.