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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CMU English Professor judges national poetry contest state finals

by Sarah Buckley

Department of English, Language and Literature faculty member Robert Fanning helped select the winning poet for the Poetry Out Loud national poetry recitation competition in Lansing March 4.

Nineteen Michigan students competed for the top honors after winning their local high school competitions. Fanning was one of three judges for the day-long competition, which lasts three rounds.

“It’s an honor to judge this competition and a joy to see these talented students lift so many amazing poems off the page and bring them to life,” Fanning said.

In his “Creative Writing: Poetry” course at Central Michigan University, Fanning requires students to recite poems and sees the benefits of that task through building confidence and developing powerful public speaking skills.

Memorizing a poem is only a small part of the competition. Contestants must pay attention to their physical presence and gestures as they recite the poem, their pacing and volume, their articulation, and lastly, provide evidence they understand the poem based on the dramatic appropriateness of their interpretation.

The judges have less than a minute to score each performance, based on that criteria. They selected Glenn Doss, a senior from Melvindale Northern Allen Park School District, as the 2023 Michigan winner. Doss now travels, expenses paid, to Washington DC where he’ll compete in the national semifinals and finals with a chance at winning a $20,000 scholarship.

Poetry Out Loud is sponsored through a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Humanities, and the Michigan Arts and Culture Council.