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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!

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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.

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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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Chemistry lab hosts area SEED students for summer research program

by Robert Wang

Summer is typically thought of as vacation time, but not for some area high school students who elected to spend their time in Anja Mueller’s material’s chemistry research lab. Mueller, a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has participated in Project SEED, sponsored by the ACS (American Chemical Society) since 2008. High school students can apply to work all summer in a scientific research lab, which gives them real world research experience and mentorship working in a university lab, fully funded by the SEED program. It gives them experience of what it’s like to be a chemist.

This year Mueller’s lab consisted of 3 SEED students. Among them was returning student, Derek Scooch, a senior from Merrill, who was researching polymer resins for removing heavy metal ions, such as arsenic, from wastewater. Each student conducted different aspects of the wastewater research under the mentorship of CMU research students who are part of Mueller’s lab. The research performed in Mueller’s lab is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary project with Itzel Marquez, School of Engineering, and Brad Fahlman, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, funded by the Army. The SEED students played an intricate role in helping to develop resins and membranes that hopefully will be developed into a usable product.

In addition to working in a lab, on Fridays the SEED students get to visit other universities, companies and federal labs and present their research to other SEED groups. “These students are curious and want to learn. They enjoy the research and get to learn organic chemistry on the side,” said Mueller of her group. As for Derek, this experience enabled him to get a full ride at the University of Michigan, where he will be studying Chemistry.