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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Grant aims to improve health care for patients with disabilities

by Sanjna Jassi

Central Michigan University has been awarded a $130,000 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation grant to help increase education and training for health care students with a focus on patients with disabilities.

The Central Michigan University College of Medicine, in collaboration with the CMU College of Education and Human Services, Special Olympics Michigan, and the Disability Network of Mid-Michigan, has been awarded a $130,000 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation grant. The grant will help increase education and training for health care students with a focus on patients with disabilities.

The principal investigator on the grant is College of Medicine faculty member Neli Ragina. Her team includes co-principal investigators Ariel Cascio, College of Medicine faculty, and Shay Dawson, Recreation, Parks and Leisure Services Administration faculty; with co-investigator Dr. Sarah Yonder, College of Medicine faculty.

They will work toward incorporating an innovative approach to CMU's health care curriculum that will help to diversify health care students' knowledge of a vulnerable patient population and foster compassionate practice techniques with regard to patients with disabilities.

"Our goal is to decrease negative stigmatization about patients with disabilities and create better prepared and more knowledgeable future health care professionals," Regina said.

Ragina also will collaborate with Dr. Lisa Iezzoni, professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Raymond Curry, clinical professor of medicine and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, to successfully develop and expand the CMU initiative nationally and internationally.