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Many well-known and lauded teaching resources are written by professors at large research universities or selective liberal arts colleges (i.e. Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do). This panel is designed for the rest of us—faculty (both full-time and adjunct) teaching art history and visual culture at teaching-intensive universities and colleges. Higher education in the fine arts is at a tipping point with a growing percentage of classes taught by graduate students and contingent faculty and the perceived irrelevance and resulting cuts to the fine arts and humanities. This situation magnifies the challenges particular to primarily undergraduate, teaching-intensive institutions: large course loads of 4/4 (or more) for full-time contracts, growing class sizes managed without any assistants, and the increasing enrollment of academically underprepared students, many of which may also come from underrepresented groups (first-generation, minority students, etc.). Presenters will share pedagogical strategies, in-class exercises, assignments, exams, and projects that engage students while addressing the challenges posed by working at teaching-intensive universities and colleges. What insights into teaching and learning can be gained from trying to just get by while teaching in the “trenches”?