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.

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.

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Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

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Professor receives 2022-23 Provost's Award

by Henry Heller

Heather Trommer-Beardslee, MFA, is a recipient of the 2022-23 Provost's Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity. Trommer-Beardslee is the Coordinator of the CMU Dance Program in the Department of Theatre and Dance and Artistic Director of the University Theatre Dance Company.

Trommer-Beardslee’s recent publications in 2022 include:

“A Model for Interprofessional Learning: Dance and Physical Therapy Students’ Collaboration on Classes for People with Parkinson’s Disease”
“Movement Breaks for Classroom and Online Learning: An Outreach Project Connecting University and Elementary School Students”
“Removing Educational Silos: Models of Interdisciplinary and Multi-disciplinary Education”

Trommer-Beardslee’s concert dance works have been performed nationally and internationally. Recent choreographic projects include jazz and tap dance for a performance in Nagoya, Japan with the Mishiro Dance Company, interdisciplinary projects bridging the gap between biology and the performing arts with biologist Wiline Pangle, and an educational opera based on the anatomy of the human vocal folds with CMU colleagues and faculty from Columbus State University, GA.

Her choreography has been featured in films that have been screened nationally and internationally including “Slipping By,” directed by Eric Limarenko, “Rising,” directed by Keeley Stanley-Bohn and  “To Persuade Darkness,” co-directed by Trommer-Beardslee and CMU students Alynne Welch, and Rachel Napier.

Trommer-Beardslee is in the process of co-authoring a book with Elaine DiFalco Daugherty titled, “Consent Practices in Performing Arts Education.” She also is in the beginning stages of creating a new dance film in collaboration with CMU faculty Eric Limarenko, Paul Collins, Ann Dasen and Jay Batzner.