My favorite Professor at KU, John Younger, was at Duke for about 25 years before coming to KU. He was their expert in classical studies (Greece, Rome, etc) and was considered a world expert. He left when they gave him a little clock to say thank you for the 25 years. For whatever reason he moved to Kansas. One time I was hanging out during office hours and he explained to me the difference between Duke and Kansas (paraphrased in my own words):

"When I was at Duke everyone was very attentive, they were all on their way to be doctors and lawyers, etc they studied hard, but never stopped to look around at all the interesting things that they could learn... at Kansas I was sitting in my office during office hours and a random kid who grew up on a farm 200 miles away from any town I've ever heard of came in to ask me some questions about an ancient dialect of greek that hasn't been spoken in ~4000 years. The kid had taught himself how to read this language sitting on a farm in the middle of Kansas- making him one of maybe 100 people in the world that could read/write in this anchient language... I could have sat at Duke for 4000 years waiting for something like that to happen and it never would have. These things happen here..."

I think about that interaction every once in a while... there's a lot in there.