Knox College President Teresa Amott with Celinda Davis and a representative of the Lincoln Academy

Knox College senior Celinda Davis has been selected a 2014 Student Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. The distinguished honor recognizes the state's outstanding college seniors.

The Lincoln Academy inducts one senior annually from each four-year, degree-granting college and university, and one student from among the state's community colleges. In addition to designating Student Laureates, the Lincoln Academy honors distinguished citizens with the state's highest award, the Order of Lincoln.

A resident of Downers Grove, Illinois, Davis is a 2011 graduate of University Laboratory High School in Urbana.

Davis's academic distinctions include the 2014 Faculty Scholarship Prize, the highest honor accorded a student by the Knox faculty. Last June she was inducted as a junior into Phi Beta Kappa, an academic distinction traditionally reserved for graduating seniors but awarded to especially outstanding juniors.

Davis is majoring in history with minors in social service and anthropology-sociology. Originally planning to teach history, she says she became interested in social issues, including community nutrition, through her work with the student club Blessings in a Backpack and the community-based FISH Food Pantry, and now plans to work in a nonprofit organization before pursuing graduate studies in community development.

Davis has held leadership roles in Blessings in a Backpack, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Alpha Phi Omega, and was inducted into Order of Omega, which recognizes juniors and seniors for both scholarship and leadership in fraternities and sororities.

Davis was awarded a Knox College Ford Fellowship for research into the history of British intervention in Africa in the 1800s, with a focus on British support for Belgian control of a large portion of Central Africa. She also has completed an extended internship at Seminary Manor in Galesburg as part of Clinical Psychology Term, one of Knox's distinctive "immersion term" academic programs.

• Photos: Celinda Davis and other students build a public history display on immigrants to Galesburg