In 1952 Meyerson came to University of Pennsylvania as associate professor of city and regional planning (in the Graduate School of Fine Arts). In 1957 he moved to Harvard as a full professor (the "Williams Professor"). From 1963 to 1966 he served as dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley; he was the acting chancellor in 1965 during the student unrest there, and is credited with helping to defuse the tension that had built up on that campus. According to UC President Clark Kerr, Meyerson thereby became the first Jew to serve as the leader of a major American research university, but he was unable to secure a permanent appointment as chancellor due to a combination of tactical errors on his part and antisemitism among the UC Board of Regents.