Frighten the college head with a sudden cry (3)
I believe the answer is:
cow
'frighten' is the definition.
(I know that cow is a type of awe)
'college head with a sudden cry' is the wordplay.
'college head' becomes 'c' (I've seen this in other clues).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'a sudden cry' becomes 'ow' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'c'+'ow'='COW'
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cow that I've seen before include "Female farm animal" , "Intimidate; an animal" , "Female seal" , "Unnerve" , "Intimidate; milk producer" .)