According to Dr. Victor Lee Burke, one of Tilly's graduate students at the University of Michigan, Tilly stated that he was a teaching assistant to Pitirim Sorokin, who along with Talcott Parsons and George C. Homans was considered by many in the profession to be among the world's leading sociologists. According to Tilly, Sorokin was known to call him up in the wee small hours of the morning and say in a distinct Russian accent, "Mr. Tilly you have to teach my class today" and then hang up, leaving Tilly in a panic. Tilly dutifully taught the class without the slightest idea of what Sorokin intended for the day. Tilly also planned to have Sorokin chair his dissertation but every time Sorokin heard Tilly's ideas he would say something like "Very interesting Mr. Tilly but I do think Plato said it better." Tilly failed his preliminary examination at Harvard because he forgot what time it was and never showed up. He eventually turned to Barrington Moore and George Homans to supervise his dissertation, but Tilly never failed to say that Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was a great person even though Tilly eschewed any great person theory of history. Although Tilly rejected exchange theory, he considered Homans, one of exchange theory's creators, to be among the best writers in the history of sociology and he mentioned to the audience at the American Sociological Association where he accepted his Distinguished Scholarship Award (he always called it the Sorokin Award to his students its original name) that he wished that George Homans were alive so he could thank him.