STAFF & FACULTY DIRECTORY PROFILE
Shannon Vanderpol
Job Title:
Associate Principal - Community Life
Department:
Administration
Email:
Phone: (510) 577-9100
ext.
166
Started at O'Dowd:
2025
Degrees:
BA, Gonzaga University (Constitutional Law; Religious Studies; Gender Studies)
MA, Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara (Systematic Theology)
Originally from:
Orinda, CA
Why I Teach:
I love working with teenagers, and for over 23 years have witnessed first-hand the transformative power of an education rooted in liberation. I believe that education cultivates a critical consciousness in students, enabling them to critically examine their own assumptions and strive for a more just and compassionate world.
Most powerful teaching technique:
Authentic and loving relationships; socratic dialogues
Why are the subjects you teach important?:
Favorite quotes:
"This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival." --Jalaluddin Rumi
"If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody." --Anthony Bourdain
“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
― Lilla Watson
Favorite trivia:
Recommended visual media:
(TV) True Detective (Seasons 1 and 4); Mad Men; The Wire; The Office; The Bear; Reservation Dogs
(Films) Godfather Trilogy; Moana; Moonlight; Mad Max Fury Road; Meek's Cutoff; Inglorious Basterds; Winter's Bone; Frozen 2; Children of Men; The Zone of Interest
(Museums) Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MoMa and The Met NYC; Brooklyn Museum; Broad LA; de Young SF; Tate Modern, London; Uffizzi, Florence; Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Recommended reads:
I'm an avid reader, but this is a contemporary fiction favorites list:
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
State of Wonder, Ann Patchet
Orbital, by Samantha Harvey
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Matrix, by Lauren Groff
The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
Hobbies or outside interests:
Backpacking; snowshoeing and XC skiing; hanging with my family; fanning-out over the Golden State Valkyries and Bay FC; cooking