Starving birds seen around old university (8)
I believe the answer is:
ravenous
'starving' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'birds seen around old university' is the wordplay.
'birds' becomes 'ravens' (raven is a kind of bird**).
'seen around' is an insertion indicator.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'university' becomes 'u'.
'o'+'u'='ou'
'ravens' enclosing 'ou' is 'RAVENOUS'.
(Other definitions for ravenous that I've seen before include "Intensely hungry" , "needing to be fed" , "A nervous way to be very hungry" , "Voracious" , "Famished" .)