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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English Department Student Researchers Shine Nationally

by Sarah Buckley

Central Michigan University English majors Lydia Taylor, Lucas Ashby, Jessica Bertolini, and Jonathon Hughes traveled to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, last month to attend the National Undergraduate Literature Conference.

The students shared their research in the company of other great scholars and writers from universities nationwide and enjoyed a keynote address by 2020 Nobel Laureate Louise Glück.

English faculty member Mark Freed understands how much work and professionalism is involved in preparing for these conferences.

“We met in an informal seminar over the course of a few months to refine research projects, fine tune arguments, and practice presentations,” Freed said.

That hard work culminated in four papers:

"Self-Silencing and Deauthorization in Foe by J.M Coetzee,” by Lucas Ashby;
"Albert Camus's Judge-Penitence and the Inescapable” by Jessica Bertolini;
"From Western Orientalism to Uncontainable Identity” by Lydia Taylor; and
"Let's Make This Hallucination Real!: Examining Utopia in Aldous Huxley's Island” by Jonathan Hughes.

Hughes enjoyed attending the conference and getting an opportunity to meet other students working in his field.

“It provided an opportunity to engage with peers outside of a regularly scheduled and overseen curriculum, allowing everyone involved to share a diverse range of personal literary interests," Hughes said.

Lydia Taylor was moved by seeing Louise Glück, a poet she’d just learned of this semester.

“As an aspiring writer, hearing her perspective on life and writing was an extraordinary experience I won’t forget,” Taylor said.

The Department of English Language and Literature, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and the Office of Research and Graduate Studies provided support through generous travel grants for the students.