The University of Tennessee is rolling out a new initiative to encourage intercultural awareness among UT students.

The initiative, Ready for the World, will begin today with a discussion by Knoxville campus Chancellor Loren Crabtree about the book “The World is Flat” by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

Crabtree said that the Internet has changed the landscape of the world economy.

“Electronics are flattening the world. Our students need to be ready for this [because] we have to be able to compete with the Indians, the Chinese, the Germans and everybody else, and we want our students to be ready for that,” he said. “That means [they have] to be technically competent but also to move with facility and competence in any kind of intercultural environment that they find themselves, whether internationally or here.”

The initiative will include more than just study abroad; it will incorporate new content into existing curricula, according to one of the program’s co-directors.

“It’s an initiative to transform the university to enhance international and intercultural awareness,” Mary Papke, special assistant to the chancellor, said. “It involves not only study abroad, but also infusion of courses on campus with international and intercultural content, [and] more international/intercultural activities on campus.”

The initiative is a part of the Quality Enhancement Plan, part of a five-year plan to increase awareness about the interconnectivity of local and global issues, she said.

The five-year plan, begun by the chancellor, calls for allocating $1.5 million for hiring faculty with international expertise and enhancing the curriculum, according to a press release issued by the university.

“We’ve been offering grants to faculty to promote international/intercultural … work of various sorts, and there is a fund also set aside to offer grants to faculty to strengthen their courses to include more international/intercultural content,” Papke said.

Some courses have already been designed to comply with the initiative’s goals, she said, but the program that Papke and Jan Simek, special assistant to the chancellor, are co-directing is looking to include worldly content in more classes.

“We are very seriously considering the general education courses. We don’t want this to just be, you take one course and you’re ready for the world,” Papke said.

Among the courses, Papke said that English courses and English literature courses might include more foreign literature.

More opportunities to study abroad is another aspect of the initiative that Papke said they’re going to work toward. Study abroad isn’t included in every major, making it difficult for students to decide between gaining an international awareness of global issues or graduating on time and saving money.

“People shouldn’t have to pay that way; it should be part of your program and make it very easy for students. Right now, they have to face lots of obstacles, going to school for longer, not having enough money … we’re trying to eliminate those obstacles,” Papke said.

Encouraging students from other countries to study at UT is something that takes more than just a proclamation, Jim Gehlhar, director for the Center for International Education, said.

“This is something that happens through personal contacts, through publicity. A lot of this would be done through the university and at the graduate level; this would be done through departments.”

Gehlhar said the university has hosted as many as 1,000 international students from a “wide variety of countries” and sent abroad nearly 600 students for credit courses. Studying abroad, Gehlhar said, gives students an insight into themselves and the world around them.

“It gives them a sense of themselves. In many instances, it will be the first time that they have been truly on their own,” he said. “Students generally come back much more self-confident, much more aware of the larger scheme of things.”

Papke said that everyone, students and faculty alike, could benefit from exposure to different cultures and experiences.

“We don’t have to stay in our own little safe-zones. We need to open ourselves up.”

For a list of events taking place this week or for more information, visit http://www.tennessee.edu/readyfortheworld/.