A preliminary count shows that 155 University of California, Davis, faculty members have elected to take the latest early retirement plan in the most recent wave of an exodus of some 335 professors -- about a fourth of the Academic Senate faculty -- over the past three years. The Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program was first offered in 1991 to help the University of California balance its budget. The deadline for the third incentive program, VERIP III (effective July 1), was the end of last month. UC Davis' loss in this third round of retirements includes three deans, several associate deans, key figures in departments and programs, and many senior professors, according to Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, vice provost for faculty relations. Almost 40 percent of those eligible for VERIP III took the university up on its offer. The program was particularly attractive to those 57 years and older, but many younger professors also elected to retire. A faculty member at 57 would have to work eight more years to earn the same retirement pay as offered this year. "The first thing that people say is that it's such a good deal you can't afford not to," said Fred Murphy, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. "These are not people looking for a place to go fishing. They are very vital in regards to their professional lives." Tomlinson-Keasey said she hopes that many of those retiring will come back and work at UC Davis in some part-time capacity. She has approved recalls for about 40 individuals so far. She expects only a handful of retirees, perhaps as few as 10, to move to other universities. "I expect there will be more recalls as we see where we are having difficulty delivering the curriculum," she said. The deans also expect that the retirements will far exceed their campus budget targets for eliminating faculty positions over the next few years. For instance, the College of Letters and Science must reduce its faculty by 40 positions by 1996. However, in just this year the college will have lost more than 40 positions between the retirements, resignations and deaths, according to Dean Robert Crummey. "We've lost a lot of very young, energetic people," said Crummey, who also signed his name to a retirement form this last month. "Nobody knows what that's going to mean, especially when you add us to VERIP I and II." Crummey says most of those he has talked to plan to use their freedom to concentrate on research, teaching or writing here at UC Davis. He has plans himself to teach Russian history at UC Davis fall quarter and then spend the spring at Columbia University in New York as a visiting professor, teaching a graduate class and writing a book. "Relatively few are planning to move away permanently and few of them are planning to use VERIP to get a full-time academic job elsewhere." One person who will be leaving for a new job is Refugio "Will" Rochin, who was recruited by his alma mater, Michigan State University, as a full professor in two colleges to teach agricultural economics and Chicano sociology. Rochin co-founded the Chicano Studies program at UC Davis in 1971 and was one of the pioneer researchers in the agricultural Green Revolution. The retirements will likely have the biggest impact on older disciplines built up in the '60s and '70s, according to Tomlinson-Keasey. This retirement wave, however, is the first to attract a large number of faculty from the School of Medicine. While many faculty who elected to retire have expressed joy in their decision, Karl Romstad, chair of the Academic Senate and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, says he is experiencing quite a different emotion. He believes that the wisdom and institutional memories leaving the campus when the VERIP III candidates depart are irreplaceable. "It makes me feel very lonely and overworked," said Romstad, who has lost seven of his colleagues in structural and geotechnical engineering since 1991. "I feel a personal loss. These were my colleagues, with whom I've been working the last 20 years."