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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College of Medicine welcomes class of 2025

by Sanjna Jassi

More than 100 future physicians began their medical education during the Central Michigan University College of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony.

One hundred and four future physicians officially began their medical education during the Central Michigan University College of Medicine's White Coat Ceremony. The event creates a commitment to compassionate care at the very beginning of medical training.

"Your odyssey to becoming a physician formally begins the moment you slip on the white coat," Dr. George E. Kikano, CMU vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, told the new students. "More than any other item, the white coat denotes the medical profession – and the knowledge, compassion, and care required from the person who wears it."

Dr. Amy Kuechenmeister, '17 gave the keynote speech. Kuechenmeister is a member of the College of Medicine's inaugural class. She told the medical students that they would feel the weight of the white coat. "Medicine is not a job, it's a calling. It is our weight to bear, and through our training, our shoulders are made strong," said Kuechenmeister. "The weight of the coat represents…love, hope for the future, compassion, integrity, honesty, ethics; it represents a profession filled with honor, empathy, and servitude."

Cutline - 10540_GEN_CMED_White Coact Ceremony_22 — Future physicians celebrate together at the 2021 CMU College of Medicine White Coat Ceremony.

Chosen from more than 6,500 applicants, the class of 2025 is one of the college's most diverse, comprised of 15 percent underrepresented minorities in medicine. The students come from 17 states plus Canada and completed their undergraduate coursework at 45 different colleges and universities.

Dr. Arnold P. Gold at Columbia University initiated the White Coat Ceremony in 1993. Gold was a professor, pediatric neurologist, and passionate advocate for humanistic health care. He believed that the oath taken by new physicians at the end of medical school came too late. Through the nonprofit organization that he and his wife, Dr. Sandra Gold, started, The Arnold P. Gold Foundation has expanded the White Coat Ceremony around the globe.

The CMU College of Medicine and nearly every medical school in the United States participate in this traditional ceremony. CMU's ceremony was broadcast via livestream and a recording of the ceremony remains available.