Back to Main Menu

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. 

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.

      Michigan PBB Disaster of 1973 revisited today

      by Kara Owens

      In 1973, a chemical company in St. Louis, Michigan shipped a flame retardant polybrominated biphenyl (or PBB) that was mislabeled as a nutritional supplement to a livestock feed mill, causing it to get mixed into animal feed. This disaster exposed an estimated 8.5 million Michiganders to PBB-contaminated farm products, and its impact is still felt today.

      Brittany Fremion, a CMU history professor, and Ben Peterson, an Alma College lecturer of political science and history, are co-editors of a new book “The PBB Disaster at 50: Reflections, Critical Lessons, and a Path Forward.” The book’s goal is to inform everyone of the disaster and its continued real-world impacts, from the Michiganders who grew up in the 70’s, to the doctors of today.

      The book features essays of multiple authors with accounts from individuals at the forefront of the PBB disaster, like farm families. Essays also outline the health impacts that continue to be felt from PBB exposure, like increased thyroid problems and rates of cancer that Medical problems associated with PBB are passed down from one generation to the next, bringing a historical problem into the present.

      Fremion and Peterson are hoping to eventually make the book available at no cost. To promote the book, Peterson and Fremion will be part of the CMU Clarke Historical Library's speaker series on September 9th and will freely distribute copies there.

      This story is brought to you by the Office of Research & Graduate Studies.

      Events

      VIEW ALL EVENTS
      VIEW ALL EVENTS

       

      View our programming newsletter

      Entrepreneurship News

      Questions?

      Contact the team