SBOE Member District 5
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Rebecca Bell-Metereau (D) |
Board Term: Jan. 1, 2023 - Jan. 1, 2027
Rebecca Bell-Metereau is a Democrat representing District 5 on the State Board of Education. She teaches film in the English Department at Texas State University, where she directs the interdisciplinary Media Studies Program that she developed. She was a Fulbright scholar and professor at the University of St. Louis, Senegal, and taught as visiting professor at the University of Nebraska.
She grew up on a farm in northern Indiana, graduated from a one-building K-12 public school along with seventeen classmates, and went to Indiana University, where she met her future husband, Jean-Pierre Metereau. After receiving their Masters, they joined the Peace Corps in Chad, one of the ten poorest countries in the world. They taught grade school and high school in Bongor, and at the University of Chad and the United States Information Service in N'Djamena, the capital. They served as French-language interpreters for U.S. Air Force grain flights to the drought-stricken Sahel.
After receiving their doctorate degrees from Indiana University, Rebecca joined Southwest Texas State University, and Jean-Pierre joined Texas Lutheran College. As a researcher and author, Bell-Metereau has delivered over a hundred professional papers, authored four books, sixteen book chapters, 29 scholarly articles, and twelve reference entries. She served as a Special Assistant to President Supple at Texas State University for two years, and was campus director of a Ford Foundation grant on diversity, service learning, and media literacy across the curriculum. She conducted workshops through National Endowment for the Humanities and K-12 foundations for teacher development. Bell-Metereau is a Texas State University Faculty Senator and a board member of the statewide Texas Faculty Association. She is a recipient of the Texas State University teaching and service awards.
As a teacher and mother of two daughters, Bell-Metereau volunteered in San Marcos Consolidated ISD enrichment and produced videos in DVDs distributed statewide for Texas Case Management, Children and Pregnant Women, and Worth the Wait programs. She served on the San Marcos Bond Commission that funded a library and bike lanes, and on a task force to develop city-wide recycling. She was also a city planning and zoning commissioner, Franklin Square HOA President, and is the former board member of Vista de Los Santos HOA.
Bell-Metereau supports interdisciplinary education including critical thinking, civics, research and vocational skills that prepare students for work, advanced study, lifelong learning, and creative growth, as they face economic and social challenges such as COVID-19 and a rapidly changing climate.
She represents Bastrop, Blanco, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Hays, Travis counties, and parts of Williamson county.