Typical American university man (5)
I believe the answer is:
usual
'typical' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'american university man' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'us'.
'university' becomes 'u'.
'man' becomes 'al' (**).
'us'+'u'+'al'='USUAL'
(Other definitions for usual that I've seen before include "Stock" , "Typically done" , "not rum?" , "Expected" , "Ordinary" .)