American university about to receive fresh opening (8)
I believe the answer is:
aperture
'opening' is the definition.
(aperture is a kind of opening)
'american university about to receive fresh' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names).
'university about' becomes 'ure' (I've seen this in other clues).
'to receive' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fresh' becomes 'pert' (I've seen this in other clues).
'a'+'ure'='aure'
'aure' placed around 'pert' is 'APERTURE'.
(Other definitions for aperture that I've seen before include "Hole, gap" , "'Hole, opening (8)'" , "Opening (for a photographer?)" , "Opening through which light enters a camera" , "Crack" .)