The Corporation this week appointed Associate Professor Doris Kearns Goodwin to the highly unusual position of non-tenured professor of Government for a three-year term.

At Goodwin's request President Bok will not consider her appointment to a fulltime tenure post until the termination of the present appointment.

The appointment temporarily ends the two-year saga of a tenure battle that featured heated disputes about Goodwin's manuscript and a re-vote of the Government Department's original decision to tenure her.

Because she wants additional time to be with her several-month-old child and to research and write the political biography of John F. Kennedy '40. Goodwin was granted half-time teaching responsibilities.

Reached this week at her Lincoln home, Goodwin said she is "very satisfied" with the decision. She said she is not sure when she will come back to teach, but that she will not give a course this fall.

The appointment is what Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University calls a "sensible solution" for both the University and Goodwin.

But it is also an extremely odd one. Steiner said he could not recall when an associate professor was allowed to stay on as a full professor without tenure before. Most associate professors either receive full tenure or are given no contract at all after their original contract expires.

But the decision may also be a prudent one for the University. Goodwin originally was recommended for tenure by the Government Department and an ad hoc committee in 1974. President Bok passed on the appointment and Goodwin had received a letter congratulating her.

Then when some questions arose about her manuscript--which has blossomed into the bestseller "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream"--the department moved to reconsider her, and later returned a mixed recommendation.

The decision then fell into the lap of President Bok, who worked out the final proposal with Goodwin.

But because she had received all but pro forma recognition from the governing boards originally, Goodwin may have had a strong legal case against the University if she had not received the title "Professor of Government."

Goodwin said she would have fought any move either to extend her contract as an associate professor of Government or to deny her a contract altogether.

When Goodwin finishes the three-year period and if she decides that she still wants tenure then, Bok will establish an ad hoc committee of scholars outside the Government Department to rule on the matter.

Goodwin said yesterday that her time off--she did not teach last year--has enabled her to organize her life better. She said she now wants to divide her time among the concerns she likes best: teaching, writing and raising a child.

She is currently finishing up a series of articles about the presidential candidates that will run jointly in Redbook, Women-Sport, American Home and Ladies Home Journal.