From the president
Joshua has demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to serving the New London community and broader region, especially in areas related to sustainable community development and planning, including environmental sustainability, environmental justice, housing, and public transportation. Joshua's civic involvement stems from an enduring interest in environmentalism. A native of New London County, Joshua's familiarity with our shoreline region and its ecosystem set a foundation for this passion, which he explored through a multitude of environmental service work throughout high school. Joshua's interest was further bolstered by his enrollment in the Connecticut College Environmental Studies program. His membership in the local community has also helped him to situate his academic and social studies of environmental justice issues locally and embed his activism the region. Often, he has served as a point of connection between his Connecticut College peers and local organizations, galvanizing student participation in direct actions, local town hall meetings, and Connecticut State Senate hearings. This year, he applied and was accepted into the certificate Program in Community Action (PICA), an academic program that cultivates responsible and reciprocal scholarship and community engagement around the social, economic, and environmental problems of our time through coursework on social problems and processes of social change, community-based learning experiences in New London and beyond, and the completion of an integrative senior capstone project. Within PICA, Joshua focuses on issues of affordable housing and transportation as a way to deploy socially and economically just interventions on the climate crisis. We are proud to select Joshua Caskey as our 2025-2026 Newman Civic Fellow and support his growing leadership and development as a social actor in our region and state. Joshua will certainly take full advantage of the opportunities offered by Campus Compact, and we anticipate that his capacities as a civic leader will blossom through his involvement in this network of scholar-activists.
Personal Statement
My interest in civic engagement began with my interest in the environment. This interest exploded during the pandemic, when I was either stuck at home reading Silent Spring, going on hikes with my family, or going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about whatever ecological topic piqued my interest that day. On one of these occasions, I found myself reading about transportation and how the current model of transportation harms the environment. Fast forward to my freshman summer at Connecticut College, and I had the opportunity to work with the Center for Housing Equity and Opportunity, (CHEO), an organization working to expand access to affordable housing in Eastern Connecticut. I hadn’t before realized how intertwined affordable housing and transportation were, and I found myself deeply interested in urbanism and affordable housing in addition to the environment topics that had always interested me. Through my time at CHEO, I also expanded upon my civic engagement by testifying at local board meetings to advocate for pro-housing ordinances and even testifying at the state capitol to push for increased protection from no-fault evictions. These experiences have given me experience, knowledge, and confidence to go to these legislative hearings in support of values I care about and which my studies show to be in the public interest. I am continuing to explore different modes of civic engagement by mobilizing my college peers to protest against the Trump administration’s actions through local direct actions.