Berryman taught or lectured at a number of universities, including the University of Iowa (at the Writer's Workshop), Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Minnesota, where he spent most of his career, except for his sabbatical year in 1962–3, when he taught at Brown University. Some of his illustrious students included W. D. Snodgrass, William Dickey, Donald Justice, Philip Levine, Robert Dana, Jane Cooper, Donald Finkel, and Henri Coulette. In a 2009 interview, Levine said Berryman took his class extremely seriously and that "he was entrancing ... magnetic and inspiring and very hard on students' work ... he was [also the best teacher that I ever had". Berryman was fired from the University of Iowa after a fight with his landlord led to him being arrested, jailed overnight, and fined for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. His friend the poet Allen Tate helped him get the job at the University of Minnesota.