“What If Your Water Breaks during Class?”

Student Messages about Faculty Pregnancy in Academic Spaces

Abstract

This study examines memorable messages that pregnant faculty members receive from their students in academic settings. Drawing on survey data from 172 tenure-track female faculty who experienced pregnancy during their academic careers, the research identifies how pregnancy, as a visible manifestation of faculty members’ personal lives, disrupts the ideal worker norm in higher education. Thematic analysis revealed three dominant patterns in student-to-faculty messages: concerns about academic impact, reactions to embodied disruption in academic spaces, and perceptions of professional capacity. These interactions function as more than fleeting remarks; they become lasting reference points through which faculty make sense of their identities as mothers and scholars. The findings demonstrate how pregnancy in academia represents a unique communicative phenomenon where personal and professional identities visibly intersect, often challenging institutional expectations of disembodied professionalism. By examining these memorable messages, this research illuminates how motherhood in academic settings is simultaneously celebrated, scrutinized, supported, and surveilled, with implications that extend beyond pregnancy itself and shape women’s long-term professional trajectories and sense of belonging in higher education.