Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture.

2025 NVC Competition Live Stream

2025 NVC Awards Live Stream

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

Find your path

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

A student standing with a faculty member holding big winning checks from the New Venture Challenge 2024.

Start up

Build up your venture idea.

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A student smiling and standing in front of his venture display at the 2024 New Venture Challenge.

Family business

Explore the Alternative Entrepreneurial Pathways category at NVC.

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A close-up of the Prusa i3 MK3 printer in the entrepreneurship makerspace, the IDEA Den in Grawn Hall 166.

Product and prototype design

Create and patent your ideas.

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Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

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CMED welcomes Class of 2022

by Sanjna Jassi

CMU’s College of Medicine class of 2022 begins its journey with white coat ceremony on Aug. 3.

As the members of Central Michigan University's College of Medicine Class of 2022 slipped on their white coats for the first time on Aug. 3, they became united in spirit with more than 550 former first-year students in embracing the college's mission to serve the underserved.

The annual ceremony that marks the beginning of a student's journey into practicing medicine comes at an important time for the Central Michigan University college, said Dean George Kikano in his remarks to the new students gathered at Plachta Auditorium in Warriner Hall.

He said it is a time when the college's undergraduate and graduate medical education programs are continuing to innovate and grow; when the college recently received full accreditation from the Liaison Committee for Medical Education; and when 100 percent of its graduates have placed in residencies — 10 students in CMU's residency program in Saginaw, 54 percent in Michigan and 75 percent in primary care.

"Now, more than ever, we are delivering on our mission to train, to treat and to lead in fulfilling our mission and improve the future of health care in Michigan," he said.

The College of Medicine selected this year's class from a record 7,286 applicants from Michigan and 11 other states. That continues the yearly record-breaking numbers of applicants that began with the first class of 64 in 2013. Last year's applicants totaled 5,443.

Students in CMU's College of Medicine spend their first two years of study on CMU's main campus in Mount Pleasant.

Third- and fourth-year medical students complete six-month Comprehensive Community Clerkships at multiple sites throughout the state and required hospital clerkships at Covenant HealthCare and St. Mary's of Michigan in Saginaw and other CMU-affiliated hospitals. Student and resident training in Saginaw is anchored at a state-of-the-art $25 million, 46,000-square-foot College of Medicine educational facility.

The College of Medicine — established in 2009 — has a mission to improve access to high-quality health care in Michigan emphasizing rural and medically underserved regions and to address an anticipated shortage of 4,000 to 6,000 physicians in Michigan by 2020.