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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America’s First Vaccinators

by Sarah Buckley

Department of History, World Languages, and Cultures faculty member Andrew Wehrman discussed the origins of vaccination and how it was implemented in the United States as the keynote speaker for the Clarke Library Speaker Series Feb. 10 in the Sarah and Daniel Opperman Auditorium.

Wehrman is author of the award-winning book The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). During his presentation, “America’s First Vaccinators,” he explained the difference between inoculation and vaccination and described the difficulties in transporting the vaccine around the country in the period after the Revolution.

Efforts were also hampered by doctors who wanted to make money off the vaccine and, therefore, did not want free public access. Wehrman argued that these are some of the reasons why the U.S. did not develop strong governmental vaccine programs until later in history, despite the initial success of smallpox inoculation during the Revolution.

Students, faculty and members of the community also attended a book signing and reception in the Clarke Historical Library following the presentation.

Wehrman began teaching at CMU in 2015. His research focuses on popular politics and the politics of medicine in early America. He has appeared on C-SPAN, NPR and in the Boston Globe and Washington Post.