Academic term seems strangely short-term (8)
I believe the answer is:
semester
'academic term' is the definition.
(semester is a kind of academic term)
'seems strangely short-term' is the wordplay.
'strangely' indicates an anagram.
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'term' with its final letter removed is 'ter'.
'seems' is an anagram of 'semes'.
'semes'+'ter'='SEMESTER'
(Other definitions for semester that I've seen before include "College spell" , "Half-year university session" , "half-year course of study" , "Division of US school year" , "Half-year division of an academic year" .)