He taught at the University of Rochester before joining the faculty at Connecticut College, where he was professor and director of the arboretum.
[3] At Harvard, he studied under Ralph Wetmore, Merritt Lyndon Fernald, Kenneth Thiman, Irving Bailey, and E. C.
When Goodwin returned to the United States in 1938, he joined the faculty of the University of Rochester as an instructor in botany.
[6] Goodwin hired William Niering in 1953 to teach in the botany department and to supervise ecological research in the Arboretum.
[7] This program, one of the first of its kind at an undergraduate level in the nation, brought together the study of science and public policy.