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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.

      Setting the bar for academic writing

      by Sanjna Jassi
      Two seniors have papers published in ‘Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences.’

      Two Central Michigan University seniors have had their papers chosen for publication in the prestigious book "Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences."

      Carson Pakula, a senior biology major from Canton, Michigan, and Shane Guenin, a senior recreation, parks and leisure services major from Lafayette, Indiana, submitted their works separately.

      The publication's more than 20-year stated mission is to offer examples of top biological writing to undergraduates and postgraduate students preparing for dissertation or journal contributions. Their papers were chosen from a nationwide search.

      Both students will attend the University of Georgia for their Master of Science degrees in wildlife sciences and work on a fully supported research project.

      "CMU works hard to make sure our students leave with strong communication skills and especially so with written skills," said Bradley Swanson, biology professor, the students' research advisor and chair of CMU's Academic Senate.

      "That their works were chosen from a nationwide competition, for both poster and paper examples, highlights the quality of our students, their training and their abilities."

      "This is a great honor for us," Pakula said. "It allows us to have our research immortalized in a textbook as we continue to revise our research for publication in a research journal."

      "As someone who wants to make a career out of research, I'm excited to see some of my work in print," Guenin said.

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