Sweet Roland informally at old college (4-4)
I believe the answer is:
roly-poly
'sweet' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'roland informally at old college' is the wordplay.
'roland informally' becomes 'roly' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'at' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'old college' becomes 'poly' (polytechnic).
'roly'+'poly'='ROLY-POLY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for roly-poly that I've seen before include "Plump in appearance- steamed pudding" , "Podgy person -- pudding" , "Kind of cylindrical jam pudding" , "Plump - rotund - pudding" , "Desert pudding of suet and jam" .)