Maureen has been working with Student Accessibility Services at York over the past 19 years in a variety of capacities. Her focus has always been on supporting the close to 4000 students registered with the services on campus to pursue their academics at the post-secondary level with the support of academic accommodations. This involves working within the larger community at York to think about ways to remove barriers to learning and to engage the community to think in terms of supporting all learners so they can flourish. She is leading the department through significant organizational change to ensure that all campus members, students, staff and faculty can connect quickly with support and services.
She is also active in the broader disability community, working as a long-standing member of the IDIA (Interuniversity Disabilities Issues Association) which is an association of disability service providers from Universities throughout Ontario. She currently sits as the Vice Chair.
Barnes has spoken to teaching assistants, instructors and faculty members about effective ways to increase all student learning through implementing practices in line with Universal Designs for Learning. She has presented at numerous provincial and national conferences about how to support students with Autism, is over-seeing a ASD pilot project at York which is supporting students with Autism to transition to the post-secondary level and was part of a multi-sector working group who consulted with various Ministries as how to support students with Autism from elementary school straight through to post-secondary. She provides academic support to a case load of students, leads the team at Student Accessibility Services, and teaches a first year for credit transition course for students with disabilities at York.
Barnes graduated from York with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Linguistics and from the concurrent education program Faculty of Education with her Bachelor of Education. She went on to study at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (O.I.S.E.) at the University of Toronto to obtain her Master of Arts with a specialization in adaptive instruction.
