US college briefly thanks conference venue (5)
I believe the answer is:
yalta
'conference venue' is the definition.
(as in the Yalta conference of 1945)
'us college briefly thanks' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'thanks' could be 'ta' (UK informal version of 'thank you') and 'ta' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yalta that I've seen before include "Crimean port, scene of nineteen forty five conference" , "Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met here in nineteen forty five" , "Conference location" , "Ukrainian resort" , "Crimean resort and seaport" .)