YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University is looking to trim its ranks with a voluntary separation and retirement program.

In a special meeting this week, the university’s board of trustees approved a resolution to consider providing a voluntary separation and retirement program for full-time tenured faculty members who are close to retiring or possibly moving elsewhere, such as into the private sector. University officials stated in a news release the program was developed in collaboration with YSU-Ohio Education Association leadership.

Eligible faculty members will be given the opportunity to separate their employment from the university, and receive a retirement incentive.

Terms of the program will be finalized after the results of a vote by the YSU-OEA faculty today. The proposal will be voted on because it’s outside of the union’s contract, Mark Vopat, the YSU-OEA spokesman said.

Information on how many employees the university seeks to shed and the resulting savings sought were not available from the university on Thursday.

Vopat, who’s also a professor of philosophy, was unable to offer specific information regarding the incentive, other than to say that it could, like many such offers, entail a buyout for certain faculty members, most of whom retire at the 30-year mark. However, what terms the faculty will agree to remain uncertain and are not guaranteed across the board, he said.

Any agreed-upon incentive also can be modified with certain stipulations or counter-proposals, Vopat said. He added that an underlying purpose of the move is because the university has been concerned for some time about decreasing enrollment numbers, largely the result of a declining population in the Mahoning Valley, which also means a smaller pool of high school graduates.

“As the university continues to move forward on the Plan for Strategic Actions to Take Charge of our Future and makes a commitment to academic program enhancement, this resolution allows us to establish a program to create the opportunity to compensate our dedicated faculty members, while also making the academic changes necessary to guide YSU into the future,” YSU President Jim Tressel, said in a statement.

“As a component of the plan, YSU is engaged in an Academic Program Enhancement and Effectiveness Initiative to gain a deeper understanding of academic programs, optimize the portfolio of academic programs and gain appropriate curricular efficiencies. Part of this process includes optimizing the instructional / academic needs of the university,” the statement also said.