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Dr. Aaron Woodard

Kilian Community College adjunct instructor Aaron Woodard successfully defended his doctoral dissertation Friday (February 12, 2010) using the college’s remote learning classroom rather than traveling to Great Britain to meet with his examiners.

 

The defense of Woodard’s dissertation, which also appears as the book, “Hard men, Soft Fur”,  is a final step in the certification for his terminal degree.

 

During the two-hour video conference the examiners reviewed the text and made specific suggestions for revisions of the document.

 

Woodard has taught history and political science courses at Kilian since 2002.

 

The South Dakota native and University of South Dakota graduate defended a dissertation discussing early European contact with native peoples through fur trading. Documented contact goes back as far as the early 1730s for this region.

 

Woodard linked with the examiners at the University of Wales at Lampeter via a two-way classroom link that Kilian uses for courses in partnership with Presentation College in Aberdeen, S.D.

 

The text was initially written in American English. Working with an advisor in Wales, Woodard had to convert the dissertation to British English standards which included adapting spelling, punctuation and some nouns that differ in usage between the two sides of the Atlantic.