Unusual stance taken by university on madman (7)
I believe the answer is:
nutcase
'madman' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'unusual stance taken by university' is the wordplay.
'unusual' is an anagram indicator.
'taken by' says to put letters next to each other.
'university' becomes 'u' (abbreviation for university).
'stance' after 'u' is 'ustance'.
'ustance' with letters rearranged gives 'NUTCASE'.
'on' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for nutcase that I've seen before include "bird may need to crack this" , "One may finish in the madhouse" , "one's cracked shell?" , "Crank" , "Crackpot" .)