The first phase of awareness of UT’s Ready for the World initiative focused upon students experiencing cultures and places other than their own—the “think global” part of the “think global, act local” emphasis of the program. In a two-year program begun in 2007, students, faculty, and staff—and alumni and friends who volunteered—were given free T-shirts and, in return, took pictures of themselves as they traveled to other states and countries. They then sent their pictures to the blog on the Ready for the World website. The challenge was wildly successful, with hundreds of photos sent to the blog.
Smokey and his human companions visited seven continents, 55 countries, and 50 states. Pictures showed Smokey coming out of a space shuttle, beside lions in Africa, at festivals in Tennessee, at Times Square, at the pyramids in Egypt, at the Acropolis in Greece—just about anywhere a mascot could go. The journey officially ended in Mississippi with cartoonist Marshall Ramsay, a former cartoonist for the Daily Beacon and a Pulitzer Prize-finalist, who saluted the effort with a cartoon.