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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

Learn more

College of Medicine welcomes class of 2026

by User Not Found

More than 100 future physicians officially began their medical education during the Central Michigan University College of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony on March 12.

Nearly 80 percent of the College of Medicine’s class of 2026 calls the Great Lakes State home.

The 103 students in the latest class, including 79 from Michigan, were drawn from a pool of more than 8,000 applicants.

Seven hold degrees from CMU. Another 31 received degrees from other Michigan universities. One in four has a graduate degree.

“At the CMU College of Medicine, I am proud that we have an outstanding team of faculty and staﬀ whose only job is to take care of you and make sure that you are healthy, and well-prepared for the journey ahead of you,” said Dr. George Kikano, CMU vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, during the ceremony. “As a newer College of Medicine, we have seen our students match in outstanding residency programs throughout the country and some of our graduates from the early classes are now practicing physicians in the region and in Michigan.”

CMU’s College of Medicine and nearly every other medical school in the United States participate in the White Coat Ceremony, first held at Columbia University in 1993. Dr. Arnold P. Gold, a professor, pediatric neurologist and advocate for humanistic health care, came up with the idea of the White Coat Ceremony.

Gold believed the Hippocratic Oath should be taken by students at the start of their medical education and not only at the end where it traditionally occurs.