Goodwin Hall was completed in 1972 as a new home for the Department of Mining Engineering (see The Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining).
It is named after William Lawton Goodwin, the first director of the School of Mining and Agriculture (the modern day Smith Engineering).
In 1989, Goodwin Hall was linked with the newly constructed Walter Light Hall in a multi-million dollar technology centre to make room for the pressing space needs of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which had long outgrown its old home in Fleming Hall.
Goodwin Hall also houses the School of Computing.