Jimmy Peltier

Jimmy is a nice guy with plenty of background knowledge in marketing. However, his class is difficult (especially for non-business majors) when it comes to exams. The stuff that shows up on exams was not well covered or covered at all in lecture and appears minimally in the book. I studied and used all of the resources available during the online, open-book exams and I still ended up with a C on every exam. Only the extra credit he gives helps lift that a few points. Even if you work hard in this class, you might not get an A.

Jimmy certainly does have a good understanding of what he teaches and really does convey a sense of enthusiasm on the subject material. Unfortunately, his class doesn't feel like a class at all, it feels more like an hour long commercial for Kwiktrip and his other clients. He is more concerned about educating the class on how successful he is. It is insulting to see him hand out money to students who answer questions. Like others have said this guy has an ego, and it really interferes with the effectiveness of his teaching. And personally Jimmy, I've been to a Kwiktrip, and I'll stick with Stop-N-Go.

Strategic Marketing for Entrepreneurs could have been a great class. Unfortunately, because it's so new and there are no tests, your grade is dependent on the final project you do, which can be done in a group or by yourself. There is no textbook except for the ridiculously long powerpoints he has. You get a grade for participation, though there really isn't any discussion in class to participate in. There were some discussions on D2L you could post in (though I doubt he reads them) and an extra credit assignment worth a whopping 1%. It seems like he doesn't actually read the stuff we turn in. Case in point: the final project is supposed to be a max of 20 pages and within 3 days of the due date, he has grades for a dozen groups? This seems particularly strange given he has a fetish for making you print out a hard copy if you want to talk to him about your project. When you give a presentation to him, make sure there are lots of pictures and colorful slides or you won't get as good a grade (as he so generously told us in an email AFTER the major project was done). Give the presentation as though you were giving it to a 14 year old with ADD. It appears that he likes videos too, so try taping your own, if possible. Knowing what I know now, I would not have taken this class. The material is nothing I haven't experienced in any of my other marketing classes and in all of those classes we actually cover the material in-depth, instead of a one day lecture covering 1/3 of the slides he has. Maybe he's better in classes with more structure like Database, but I've never had him for anything else.

Jimmy is very difficult, but along with Dr. Scovotti, he is one of the two best professors I had at Whitewater. I graduated in May of 2007, and just came back to this site to make it clear to others that if you take Jimmy and Scovotti- you will learn so much and be prepared for your 'real jobs.'

You'll learn a lot from this guy. I do find it odd that we do projects for real clients. Did you know that these are actually his clients? Yep, he's the Director of Marketing Research at Knupp and Watson...a nice ad agency in Madison. We should be on their payroll!!!