Richard A. Jenner

I do not know why this professor teaches here at SF state! He is too good for SFSU! I find myself exteremely lucky that I took his class. Yes, he is old, but that is not a disadvantage, just listen to his lectures. He is brilliant, take his class, that is all I can say... Thanks to MGMT dept.; pls do whatever it takes to keep this guy at SF state.

He is a funny teacher with a st-st-st-stutter. His lectures are very interesing. He adds a lot about his past experiences about being a manager.

I took Arias and didn't do very well. Jenner is a better teacher anyways and his 2 exams are fair. They consist of 3 questions each, but get this, He BASICALLY GIVES YOU THE QUESTIONS ON THE EXAMS. Plus, there isn't any homework or a project to do. there is ton's of extracredit avaliable (which is writing 1 page about a Business Week article).

Overall he is a very good teacher.

Professor Jenner is very energetic for someone his age. You will be suprise at how this man wants to teach and how he wants to make sure his student are learning the material. I took him for MGMT407 in the summer, pretty cool guy and class. Took him again during the fall for MGMT660..........well, this class was a bit boring. Should of been called the "Complex Adaptive System class" instead of a class on productivety because this was what he said every class, over and over and over.

But he is a pretty easy guy and a fair grader. You will get a passing grade just for doing your work....

Professor Jenner is passionate about his lectures using real world examples and personal stories. He was a full time professor at Stanford University before retiring and teaches part-time at State. The first day of class Jenner said in a sure deep and elderly voice, "I going to show you how to make money using essential concepts of economics! You will make money not having to work with this new knowledge. You will watch your money grow in the markets!" That caught my attention! Management 407is a challenging course. The concepts are some time hard to understand, however; I did get a B from the course, and I did not even need to open the book. If one copies his lecture word for word, or records his lecture on tape as I did, his test questions are the same as his lecture word for word. The only trick is understanding the concepts( i.e. IS/LM curves) and being able to explain how they work in essay form. He also gives weekly extra credit, writing a one-page response paper to an assigned Business Week article. He give you the full point for trying even if you ideas on the article is clearly way off base. The total score on the response papers is enough to bring your class standing up one letter grade. As one can see by the other responses, Jenners type of lecture is not the best for every student. It worked well for me, but a lot of other struggled to grasp the concepts.

His lectures and slides are very clearly his own ideas and not generally mainstream economic views. Don't ever dare question him on anything. He is only interested in his own interpretations. He is a competent economist but a very irritable and non-flexible instructor.

He covers in three weeks what the text covers in 20 pages, or he covers in one slide an entire chapter. Read the chapters to understand economics which isn't taught in lecture, and ignore the text for the exams. Focus on the slide and lectures for the exams, which stress rote memorization of minutae rather than a general understanding of economics.

The case studies were the best part of the class and at least involved some other ideas than Dr. Jenner's. This class was the worst experience thus far in my MBA program

Dr. Jenner is an excellent teacher. He knows the material like the back of his hand, is a dynamic lecturer, has thought of relevant examples for the theory he is presenting, provides access to his lecture slides with relevant links to other source material and class information on his website to assist in our note taking, and encourages classroom participation and discussion. Dr. Jenner is also a demanding teacher. He expects not only a mastery of the basic material he presents in class, but an ability to analyze this material and to be able to discuss it in essay form with clear graphical examples on his tests. These tests do not ask for a mere repetition of his lectures, but also expect a synthesis of the ideas he is presenting. He does seem aware that his expectations are high however, and provides ample opportunity to earn "extra credit" points towards the final grade with a series of short writing assignments from Business Week articles and one group project. My one major critique of his lecture style would be that he sometimes runs out of time in his lecture and will tend to speed through what he expects for "an A answer on the test".

Man, this class sucked. Lectures couldn't have been more boring. The teacher has lots of long boring stories and lame jokes. I learned nothing that wasn't common sense. A waste of my time. Tip: he puts the notes online so don't go to class. Also, don't buy the book on how to start an internet business. you wont use it and it sucks anyway.

Jenner is an interesting man. He must be in his 70's, but he has the passion and energy of a 20 year old. His enthusiasm and knowledge make him a superior professor.

His lectures are very effective. You can tell that he is very intelligent and his work/life experiences only help his cause for being a good teacher. Jenner has many stories to tell that relate to economics. He has a great sense of history about this topic. However, his stories are also his weakness. He often takes too much of class time for his tall tales and leaves little room for the topic on hand. From what I've heard from past semesters, he has a tendency to take it slow at the beginning and then tries to cram everything at the end of the semseter.

Jenner uses a web page for his class that is excellent and well updated. You can download his overheads for the class from here which is highly recommended because his tests are based on them.

Speaking of tests, they are all essay questions. Jenner also loves mathematics so you have to attack his tests like a proof - you can't assume anything and you have to logically associate terms and concepts. Start with big ideas and then work them down to the nitty-gritty stuff.

He also assigns a lot of extra credit. There is a group project and case studies from Business Week. These are especially good in applying what you learn to the real world.

The textbooks are O.K. Many of my classmates thought that they were too mathematical with all of the graphs and diagrams. Jenner seldom refers to them.

Overall, Jenner is worth taking. He does an excellent job in relating economic theory to everyday situations. I was surprised how much I learned in this class, especially how to make money from understanding the overall condition of the economy. You can get a B in his class with no problem with all of the extra credit. An A requires a bit more.

While I learned alot in this class, a very small fraction of the learning was due to the lectures. I found the lectures to be confusing and disorganized. There were far to many graphs with confusing explanations of what the graphs meant. The most useful component of the class was the articles we had to read and analyze from Business Week. It was through these articles that I was able to relate the economic concepts to the real world. The exams were all written essays and therefore the grading was very subjective. I really did not know what I needed to do to improve my test scores. This was very frustrating. While I don't recommend this professor, he did convey an excitement about innovation and creativity that I found inspiring.

Professor Jenner is really great. He enriched my experience here at SFSu! I highly reccomend his course, he is intelligent, witty and very nice. Take his course you'll be glad you did! His lectures are humorous, entertaining and full of wit and real life experiences. He is lively and keeps you interested!

Dr. Jenner is an incredibly bright man with a passion for economic theory. His classes are extremely entertaining and he is excellent at providing an historical context for his lecture topics. He is a bit weak at helping students understand the technical/mathematical concepts involved in economics, but if you concentrate on memorizing the slides (be sure to download these from his website) you'll know enough to get by on the exams. There are two midterms and a final, each consisting of three essay questions (he'll give you really good hints about the content of the questions before the exam)and extra-credit homework assignments taken from Business Week from time to time. If you want to get a good grade, do the homework and participate in class. The Business Week articles are discussed in class, and Dr. Jenner always has very strong and learned opinions about the subjects. Also, a group project is assigned for extra credit. These are presented in class and are very boring to listen to but worthwhile to participate in (I, for one, appreciate any practice to give speeches). Unfortunately they take away a lot of valuable class time, as does Dr. Jenner's rambling style of lecturing. He tends to repeat stories (verbatim, which is rather unnerving), but it's hard to stop him since he IS so enchanting. If you take his class, be ready to meet a classic narcissist. He's intelligent, charming, a bit arrogant, and a fascinating lecturer. You'll learn something of economic theory, and, perhaps best of all, you'll be able to pick up a copy of Business Week and critically analyze it.

All I can say it that he is very passionate about her teachings and works and he managed to bring a traditionally dry economic class to live. Great job.

His exams maybe demanding but if you have a good concept of what he is teaching, getting a B is not a problem. To get an A, you need to fully understand what he teaches in the class, and you need to write fast in the exam.

Overall, if you are coming here to really learn something, Jenner is a good instructor.