Barrs Chapel C.M.E Church
 
Caneta S. Hankins is the assistant director of the Center for Historic Preservation. Since 1984, her work at the Center has focused on heritage education, architectural and cultural preservation of rural areas, research, grant development, and publications including web sites and video productions.  Hankins was project coordinator for the Mid-South Humanities Project (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities) at MTSU in 1978-1983 that involved teacher-training programs in heritage education in ten states.  She has developed curriculum materials on a variety of topics, published articles and teaching guides, presented workshops, and worked with educators in Tennessee and other states as well as in England, France, and Ireland.

As director of the Tennessee Century Farms program, Hankins has the responsibility for this statewide program that documents and recognizes farms that have been in the same family for at least 100 years.  Hankins curated a traveling exhibit on Tennessee’s family farms from 1988-89, edited an accompanying essay book, and in 2004 created the Tennessee Century Farms web site, now featuring entries and photographs on more than 1400 farms. She produces videos and DVDs on the stories of Century Farms and is the editor of the Century Farms newsletter.  She has compiled county publications as well as Holding on to the Homestead: A Guide to Programs, Services, and Options for Tennessee’s Farmers (published in 2005).  She regularly works with farmers and with local, state, and federal agencies to promote the preservation of farmsteads and rural landscapes. She is the Center’s representative for the Tennessee Farmland Legacy Partnership, a cooperative effort of federal and state agencies and non-profits, that works to help farmers stay on their land and keep it in agricultural production. She co-authored Barns of Tennessee (Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association, 2008, second edition, 2009).

Hankins is the author of Hearthstones:The Story of Rutherford County Homes and numerous articles in professional journals. She was the project director of the Tennessee Iron Furnace Trail, a multi-county research and documentary effort which produced a guidebook, web site, and award-winning DVD on this 19th century industry.

Research on eighteenth century Irish immigration resulted in “Hugh Rogan of Counties Donegal and Sumner: Irish Acculturation in Frontier Tennessee” which was first published in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly and was included in Tennessee History, The Land, The People, the Culture  (University of Tennessee Press, 1998).  A revised edition of this article was published by the Donegal Journal (Ireland) in 2002.  In addition to maintaining international ties through conferences, Hankins consulted with the Ulster-American Folk Park in the removal of the 1830 Rogan house from Tennessee and its reconstruction and interpretation in Omagh, Northern Ireland. She developed a new web site on the Rogans of Sumner County and County Tyrone which went online in June of 2011. 

Hankins, who holds degrees in English, History and History with an Emphasis in Historic Preservation, has taught courses in historic preservation, museum development, grant writing, and Tennessee History at MTSU.