By Doug Carroll
GCU News Bureau
It's a small world, after all, for Alexa Tyson.
The junior education major at Grand Canyon University thinks nothing of going the extra mile(s) to locate a book for students, faculty or administrators at the University. Her work in interlibrary loans sometimes means fielding a dozen requests in a two-hour period -- and searching as far as Australia, as she did once for the Ken Blanchard College of Business.
"We'll go through a list of libraries and see which ones would be likely to give (a book) to us," says Tyson, who is in her second year as a student worker in the library.
For her diligence in hunting down her quarry, and other customer-service qualities, Tyson has been named GCU's Student Worker of the Month for November by the Office of Career Services. She's part of a growing student workforce of 1,400 on the Phoenix campus.
Library manager Dana Shreve nominated Tyson, 20, who is from Hastings, Mich., and studying special education.
"She will stop whatever she is doing to make sure that whatever needs to get done, gets done," Shreve says. "In the interlibrary loan department, she is the star student. She knows the ins and outs and is able to complete (those) requests thoroughly and completely."
As much as she enjoys her work, Tyson has something bigger on the horizon: an internship in merchandising with Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., which she will begin on Jan. 13. She'll be at Disney for about six months, switching over to online study with GCU while she is there.
Until then, she will be part of the library's transition from its temporary quarters in Building 9 to a gleaming, two-story permanent home in the renovated Student Union. That officially begins Monday, with a grand opening scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 3.
She'll bring her old-school work ethic to the new place.
"She is courteous and helpful on the phone with students, no matter the difficulty of the questions," Shreve says. "She's an amazing example to all of the other library assistants. There's never a moment when she is slacking."
Contact Doug Carroll at 639.8011 or [email protected].
