President Eisenhower yesterday appointed John T. Dunlop, professor of Economics, as a member of a three-man emergency board to investigate a strike-threatening dispute on most of the nation's railroads.

The board, created under the National Railway Labor Act, has 28 days to make recommendations in a wage dispute involving railroads and the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen.

Named to the board with Dunlop were Edward M. Sharpe, chief justice of the Michigan State Supreme Court, and Charles A. Sprague, publisher of the Salem (Oregon) Statesman.