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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To leave or not to leave

by Kara Owens

Picture of psychology graduate student, Young-Kook Moon Industrial/Organizational Psychology doctoral student, Young-Kook Moon, researched employee motivations behind their desire to stay or leave their job and the resulting behaviors. Many Americans are leaving their jobs with or without another job in place, a trend being called the “Great Resignation.” This research could be beneficial for employers looking to understand and reduce this staff turnover. Moon also envisions the research results helping employees and managers better understand each other and work together to improve employee performance and wellness.

Research of employees from across the US and South Korea, his home country, found that they fell into four categories:

Embedded stayers (“I want to stay and will stay because I love my job”)
Detached stayers (“I am not going to leave even though I have no reason to stay”)
Script-driven seekers (“I will be leaving, and I have a clear plan”)
Dissatisfied seekers (“I want to leave but I don’t have a tangible plan yet”)

These categories were based on employee patterns of motivation (e.g., financial reasons, social reasons) and beliefs (e.g., job satisfaction). These categories predicted work behaviors and general wellness. For example, embedded stayers were able to adjust to change and script-driven seekers reported the least wellness.

Equipped with this information, employers could implement wellness programs that target the specific needs of each employee group. Moon notes that taking this targeted approach may improve employee outcomes and organizational return on investment.

Moon was inspired by the work of other employee turnover researchers and was assisted by the feedback and direction of Psychology advisors Kimberly O’Brien and Terry Beehr. Moon also received an $800 grant from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies in Spring 2021 to assist with completing this research and presented the results at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Annual Conference in Spring 2022.