Employment of university person deemed wise (5)
I believe the answer is:
usage
'employment' is the definition.
(I know that employment can be written as usage)
'university person deemed wise' is the wordplay.
'university' becomes 'u' (abbreviation for university).
'person deemed wise' becomes 'sage' (a sage is a wise person).
'u'+'sage'='USAGE'
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for usage that I've seen before include "management" , "Way of employing" , "Convention" , "Interest of old" , "Common practice" .)