{"id":721,"date":"2019-05-07T17:19:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T21:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/?p=721"},"modified":"2026-07-08T12:03:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:03:45","slug":"mills-godwin-life-sciences-building-mgb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/2019\/05\/07\/mills-godwin-life-sciences-building-mgb\/","title":{"rendered":"Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building (MGB)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>
Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building, 1980s<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The\u00a0Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building<\/strong>, or familiarly MGB, is home to the\u00a0Department of Biological Sciences,\u00a0<\/strong>the\u00a0Department of Psychology<\/strong>, classrooms, and laboratory space. The building is located west of the Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library<\/a><\/strong> and next to the Pretlow Planetarium<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>on the\u00a0Old Dominion University (ODU)<\/strong> campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building was built on land that once occupied the J.J. Smallwood School, an African American school in the Lambert’s Point neighborhood of Norfolk. The school was named after John Jasper Smallwood, a local civil rights leader and education advocate, and operated from 1920 to 1970. ODU purchased the property from the City of Norfolk, and demolished the school as part of constructing the building. Opened in January of 1981, the building is named in honor of Mills Godwin, a student at the Norfolk Division\u00a0of the College of William & Mary<\/b> and the only two-term Governor of Virginia. Governor Godwin was instrumental in granting ODU funding for several capital projects in the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to 1981, the Department of Biology was housed in the Science Building, now\u00a0William B. Spong, Jr. Hall<\/strong><\/a>, or Spong Hall, and the Department of Psychology had offices off 49th Street. In 2025, the Pretlow Planetarium, the Arthur & Phyllis Kaplan Orchid Conservatory<\/strong>, and the Alfriend Chemistry Building<\/strong> were demolished to make room for the construction of a new five-story, 162,500-square-foot Biological Sciences Building<\/strong>. The building houses classrooms, teaching laboratories, greenhouses, study rooms, a 120-seat lecture hall, and staff offices. The $184 million dollar project is expected to be completed in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resources<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Old Dominion University Photographic and Multimedia Collection<\/a>, Special Collections and University Archives, Perry Library, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, 23529.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. ODU Photographic Collection<\/a>, Old Dominion University Libraries Digital Collections, Old Dominion University Libraries.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Building the University<\/a>, Old Dominion University Libraries Digital Exhibit, 2005.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    References<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Bookman, Steven and Jessica Ritchie. Old Dominion University: A Campus History Series.  Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, South Carolina, 2017.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Grinkewitz, Jonah, “Old Dominion University Breaks Ground on New Biological Sciences Building<\/a>,” Old Dominion University News, https:\/\/www.odu.edu\/article\/old-dominion-university-breaks-ground-new-biological-sciences-building, accessed 2026 July 8.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The\u00a0Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building, or familiarly MGB, is home to the\u00a0Department of Biological Sciences,\u00a0the\u00a0Department of Psychology, classrooms, and laboratory space. The building is located west of the Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library and next to the Pretlow Planetarium\u00a0on the\u00a0Old Dominion University (ODU) campus. History The Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building was built… read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[2,6,8],"tags":[52,17,91,188,29,466,190,189,14,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2624,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions\/2624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/oduwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}