Distant relative phoned during off-campus university function (5-4)
I believe the answer is:
orang-utan
'distant relative' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'phoned during off-campus university function' is the wordplay.
'phoned' becomes 'rang' ('ring' can be a synonym of 'phone').
'during' is an insertion indicator.
'off campus university' becomes 'ou' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'function' becomes 'tan' (tangent, mathematical function).
'rang' going inside 'ou' is 'orangu'.
'orangu'+'tan'='ORANG-UTAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for orang-utan that I've seen before include "11 across" , "Endangered primate" , "Ape of Borneo and Sumatra" , "Anthropoid mammal of Indonesia" , "Great ape" .)