Jane E. Baack

Jane is an energetic professor that encourages you to think and have an opinion. SHe is open to discussion on almost any topic, and will only guide the lecture. SHe will ask questions that engage students in conversation. In class groups are interesting to see what other students are thinking. She requires a lot of reading and it is necessary to complete the reading before each class. This is not a course to fall behing in. Jane's testing is all essay type questions that you write in class. SHe is looking for a lot of detailed information, so be prepared.

It's very rare to find a teacher as dedicated and passionate about the subject as Dr. Jane Baack. She is highly intelligent and expects her students to be as well...which is a good thing. She is available by phone from 6AM to 10PM. No joke. She is more than happy to thoroughly discuss your assignments and expectations with. Her grading process is the only thing that maybe a drawback to the class. All exams and assignments are multi-page essays, however even if you hate to write the class discussions make the class worthwhile.

There is a lot of reading for this course but other than the textbook it is all interesting. The class discussions are lively and the cases are very useful. I've heard the other 788 classes only use the textbook, very unfortunate.

The best thing about Professor Baach is her willingness to talk to people out of class. She encourages you to call her at home, and she's true to her word as I've talked to her a couple of times.

One thing to watch out for is her in-class essays. She expects them to be understood by someone who doesn't know the material, so be VERY descriptive and explain everything. Her grading is rough, only 3 people got A's the first in class essay.

Exams: There were 3 exams; She was pretty harsh w/ my paper because there were red marks w/ comments everywhere. It got to a point where I couldn't read what the heck she was trying to say.

Lectures: She loves to talk about her family, but that's o.k. because she ties it right back to the management principles and concepts.

Personality: She seems strict at first, but after attending several of the lectures, I realize that she is pretty cool.

I really liked this class. I learned a lot and ended up keeping the book. While I was not attending class regularly or on time at first, I finally got into a grove with her and basically got out of it what I put in. As long as understand the concepts and participate, you'll do well. She is a good person and seems to really want to connect to the students as well as serve them as best she can. I couldn't get into her 682 class, but would recommend her for that as well.

Jane Bacck is a good teacher. She discusses the book and cases. She has a lot of good examples and stories to tell which are related to class material. You have to learn the theories and apply to the cases. You have to diagnose the problems in the cases. If you study the theory well and you have good English writing skills, I think you will do very well in this class. I am not a native to this country and I am a last minutes kind of person, yet I can pull this off with B-, not bad.

Prof. Baack taught what could have been a very stimulating class. Some of the topics were more "fun" than pure analytical. However, Prof. Baack insisted on some very boring readings, some which didn't make sense. We did get to read some case studies, but the "in-class" write-ups were pointless. She demanded that we prepare for the in-class case studies, but have no notes because, "we'll all know it so well by then." What's that about? Let's see how much pressure we can put on the Graduate students to memorize pages of text? And then she graded as though we had our notes right there and all the time in the world to make poignant points. On the first one, she clearly said she didn't want any analyzation, but she kind of changed her mind when she graded them. She wanted to know, "so what?" (You can look for that notation on your returned papers, I guarantee it will be there.) You can't just say anything you want in her essay exams, you have to say why. Hmm, sounds like some analysis to me. Another thing that got pretty annoying was that she went on and on about her fabulous children. How many professors do you know this kind of information about? Her daughter got A's in math in college but no one encouraged her to be a math major, unlike when her son got A's. One went to Harvard. And now the daughter is a professor, too. Blah, blah, blah. I'm glad she's proud of her children, but it seems inappropriate to be doting on them in EVERY SINGLE LECTURE. My response is SO WHAT!

She is a boring lecturer who loves to name drop. If you come out of this class thinking you learned something, then you really have no business being in the MBA program. She is fairly well read in the management field, but the readings she assigns are extremely outdated which is funny because she stresses gathering current articles for your term paper. She devotes a large portion of your grade to class participation, so you hear the same people regurgitating the usual management rhetoric over and over.

Dr. Jane Baack is an extremely knowledgeable instructor when it came to ethics in the business world. The one thing I gathered from taking this class, is to think about others before monetarily gratifying ones' self. Decades passed, I would have been scorned for saying such a thing but NOW it's the norm. In Dr. Baacks' BUS 682 class, she had 2 tests (Midterm & Final) which related to readings in the books that she assigned. What's great is that she gives the exam questions a week before the actual test. And you can work together in groups to answer the assigned questions. What I advise is to concentrate on the ISSUES at hand in every specific case. She loves content and everyday examples! There was readings nearly every week in this seventeen week course, usually 2 cases (one from each book), that would complement each other for class discussion. In BUS 682, you have to communicate, to get a good grade. It's in a seminar setting, with group projects nearly every class session. There's also 4 papers to turn in. Three of them are based on the readings and your thoughts about the Case. She stresses ISSUES, all the time! The fourth paper, is a Current Issues report, usually based in business periodicals (no more than a year old). It's nearly the same format as the 3 Case Studies that are due. She made the class very interesting, although, I had trouble finding issues in cases, so I wish she would have clarified the ISSUES stand point a little further. She was very interested in the subject and has a vast amount of knowledge in the ethical stand point of business in our society. Dr. Baack swayed away from the subject at times but always came baack to the subject at hand. She catered to students who had an opinion, so you can't sit there with your mouth zipped. The text was long and dry but most of time EYE-opening. It's unbelievable what corporations had gotten away with. And finally, Dr. Baack was always prepared for every class time. I enjoyed her teaching style!

Jane Baacks class consists of a midterm, 10-15 page paper, 10 minute presenation, class participation, and final. Midterm and final consist of essay questions which are answered in class. Essay questions are general which test understanding of concepts. If you pay attention to the major concepts she emphasizes during lecture you should do okay on exams. The paper may be difficult for some students because she expect an evaluation of sources you cite. Lots of reading and class participation (part of grade) required. She does tend to call on the same people so you need to learn to catch her attention. Though she encourages participation, she spends a lot of time talking. She needs to work on faciliation skills. She knows her material, presents some current theories though some of her material is dated, and shows an interest in helping students learn. Overall she is competent and can be fun. She is a best bet given your other choices for management instructors at SFSU.