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

In Memoriam: Shannon Sexton

by User Not Found

Shannon Sexton, faculty member in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Central Michigan University, passed away Sunday, Jan. 1, 2023. She was 47.

A caucasian woman with long black hair smiles at the camera.

Sexton earned two degrees from CMU: a bachelor’s degree in child development in 1997 and a master’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies in 2006. She worked with the EightCAP, Inc. Head Start program for more than a decade before joining the faculty at CMU in 2008.

“Shannon had a gift for connecting with students, sharing her work and life experiences and enthusiasm for learning with a welcoming smile,” said Jeff Angera, chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “She had the ability to create an engaging class milieu even in larger lecture classes.”

Her faculty colleagues remember her as exceptionally friendly, upbeat and welcoming, especially for individuals new to the department.

“Learning the university culture as a new faculty member sometimes requires a little bit of time,” said Michelle Lee, a faculty member in the human development and family studies department. “However, Shannon helped to make my experience my first week at CMU infinitely better. Her infectious smile, good heart and joyful spirit always added to my day.”

Sexton loved teaching and could always be counted on to take on additional responsibilities to help out the team, Angera said, including taking on overload classes.

“Shannon never hesitated to help when we needed an instructor,” human development and family studies colleague Joellen Lewasder said. “And, when she was not talking about classes, she would share her joy and pride in her daughter, Katie.”

Outside her work at CMU, Sexton immensely enjoyed her role as a mother, and loved cheering on her daughter, Katie, at softball games.

Sexton is survived by her husband, John, and daughter Katie, as well as by her parents, Jim and Catherine Gouge; her brother, Jim Gouge, and sister-in-law, Michelle Brznek-Gouge; three nieces and several aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.