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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. 

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.

      Research, innovation VP finalists will visit virtually

      by Sanjay Gupta
      Three finalists for the position of vice president for research and innovation will visit campus virtually March 30-April 1, 2020.

      Three finalists for the position of vice president for research and innovation will visit campus virtually starting Monday, March 30.

      The candidates — Satyendra Kumar, Jennifer Taylor and David Weindorf — will each interview for the position and conduct a virtual open forum livestreamed to the university community. Links will be posted on the Provost's Office website.

      Each open forum livestream will start at 3 p.m.

      Monday, March 30: David Weindorf

      Weindorf is associate vice president of research in the Office of Research and Innovation, and professor and BL Allen endowed chair of pedology at Texas Tech University. He held several positions in research at Texas Tech from 2013-18 before joining OR&I in 2018. From 2010-13, he was associate professor of soil classification/land use at the Louisiana State University AgCenter.

      He earned a doctorate in agronomy in 2002, a Master of Science degree in soil science in 1997 and a Bachelor of Science degree in range management in 1995, all from Texas Tech University.

      Tuesday, March 31: Jennifer Taylor

      In 2014, Taylor joined the University of Arkansas, where she is assistant vice chancellor for research and innovation, director of the Office of Sponsored Programs and research professor in the Walton College of Business, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses. She was assistant vice provost for research at UA from 2014-18. Before that she was interim and founding co-director and assistant director of the Universitywide Office of Sponsored Programs. From 2008-13, she served as assistant director in the Office of Grants and Contracts of the Office of Sponsored Programs; and assistant director, Grants and Contracts Management; at Vanderbilt University and VU Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

      She earned an executive MBA from Vanderbilt in 2015, a doctorate in interdisciplinary health psychology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2004, a Master of Arts degree in clinical psychology from the University of Northern Iowa in 1999, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology with a minor in business from the University of Kentucky in 1997.

      Wednesday, April 1: Satyendra Kumar

      From 2016 to the present, Kumar has been associate vice president for research and professor of physics at the State University of New York at Albany and an honorary professor at Amity University in Noida, India. Since 2018 he has directed the Ion Beam Laboratory at SUNY-Albany. From 2009-13, he was associate vice president for research at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He served as a program director at the National Science Foundation from 2005-08.

      Kumar holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Nebraska; and Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in physics from Panjab University, Honors School, in Chandigarh, India.

      The new vice president will replace David Ash, who announced in November that he will retire May 31. Ray Christie, senior vice provost for academic administration, chaired the 12-member search committee for Ash's replacement, assisted by search firm Greenwood/Asher & Associates.

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