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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

Learn more

CMU faculty present at the National Communication Association Annual Conference

by Bree Ring

The National Communication Association advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry.

NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems.

The School of Communication, Journalism, and Media did a great job of representing the great work coming out of Central Michigan University’s College of the Arts and Media.

Professor Elizabeth Carlson standing at a podium speaking at a conference. You can see two other panelists seated at a table next to her. You can also see a slide from her PowerPoint displayed on a large screen behind her.

Competitively-selected papers presented by CMU faculty

Elizabeth Carlson – Communication
"Do More Complete Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) Messages Work Better than Less Complete Messages? Testing a Risk Communication Consensus"
Applied Communication Division
This was one of five top papers in the Applied Communication Division.

Steve Coon – Journalism; Elizabeth Carlson
"Freedom of the Press? How Journalists Use Professional and Market Logics to Determine Public Engagement"
Organizational Communication Division
This paper is based on Steve Coon's MA thesis.

Ed Hinck - Communication
"Do U.S. Federal Agencies Constitute Argument Coalitions Capable of Challenging Anti-climate Change Assemblages?"
Argumentation and Forensics Division

Richard Ren – Public Relations
"Multiple Frames and Different Emotions. Emotions Activated by Messages with Multiple Frames Can Influence the Messages’ Effects on Stigma toward People Living with HIV"
Health Communication Division

Kirsten Weber – Communication; Marni Lorenz (CMU MA alumnus and now Wayne State PhD student)
"A Generational Approach to Grief Studies: Bereavement Experiences of Generation Z on Reddit"
Scholar-to-Scholar Session

Zulfia Zaher - Journalism
"COVID-19 and Social Media Strategies of Top Hospitals" Public Relations Division

Service to the discipline

Elizabeth Carlson - Invited respondent for a paper session in the Organizational Communication Division. (This means that you read four to six panelists' papers ahead of the conference and provide thoughtful feedback.)

Ed Hinck - Session chair for one paper session, invited respondent for another paper session, and invited respondent for a Research Round Table session.

Zulfia Zaher said, “It was a great pleasure to witness numerous familiar faces and names from CMU among such an illustrious gathering.”