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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Political Science emeritus faculty member becomes a novelist

by Sarah Buckley

Since retiring from Central Michigan University, Professor Emeritus of Political Science James P. Hill has published three political novels that revolve around a fictional 2024 U.S. Presidential election.

Hill was born and spent his early adulthood in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Living so close to the Great Lakes, he grew to love northern Michigan and recently realized a dream to write about this beautiful area as a backdrop to his trilogy of political novels.

In the Arms of Gitche Gumee (2022)
Saving Gitche Gumee: The Unveiling of a Great Lakes Mystery (2023)
The Gitche Gumee Diaries: The Secrets of Velvet LeBlanc (2024)

The books explore the mysterious dumping of barrels of “munitions” waste by the U.S. Corps of Engineers in the late 1950’s and the spiritual and political journey of a young Native American woman from the Upper Peninsula who seeks to uncover the true nature of this dumping.

Lake Superior is called Gitche Gumee from the Ojibwe name for the lake, gichi-gami (pronounced gitchi-gami or kitchi-gami), meaning "great sea or big sea."

The book covers are designed by Hill’s brother Nicholas, the graphics by Jim’s youngest daughter Alyson, and the photography by his older daughter Patricia. Both of his daughters are CMU graduates.

Hill wore many hats during his tenure at CMU. He was a professor of Political Science, Director of the Honors Program, Business Law and Regulation Department Chair, and played an instrumental role in the creation of the Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government.

Before coming to CMU, he worked in the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and as a Commissioner on the Michigan Natural Resources Commission. He was also a political consultant for several state and federal campaigns.

Hill returned to his native town of Pickford to promote his first novel, with a portion of the proceeds from book reading events being donated to the local Pickford Library. The third and final novel in the trilogy was released on Amazon in November and is being advertised in the Harvard Authors’ Bookshelf in the November edition of Harvard Magazine.

Hill and his wife Kathy currently reside in Geneva, Illinois. To view and order the novels, please visit Hillnovels.net.