Paul S. Ropp, research professor of history, will be honored by his alma mater, Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio, at that institution’s annual alumni awards banquet on Friday, Oct. 8, part of the school’s Homecoming weekend.

Ropp, who graduated from Bluffton in 1966, will receive the Professional Achievement Award for continued pursuit of intellectual growth and exploration of creative ventures in a chosen field—history, in his case. The Alumni Association Board of Directors chooses the award recipients from nominations submitted by alumni, faculty and friends of the university.

Ropp has taught at Clark since 1985. He served as chair of the History Department for 10 years, and also as Associate Dean and later Dean of the College. In 1989, he received a Japan Foundation Staff Expansion Grant to bring a full-time tenure-track professor of Japanese language and literature to Clark. A few years later, he started the Asian Studies concentration and began offering Chinese language instruction at Clark. In 2006, Ropp was named the Andrea and Peter Klein Distinguished Professor of History.

Ropp teaches courses in Asian history, including Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism in China, modern Asia, Chinese civilization, modern China, modern Japan, Chinese women in literature and society, and the People’s Republic of China. He is also affiliated with Clark’s programs in Women’s Studies and Asian Studies. His research deals primarily with Chinese social and cultural history in the 17th and 18th centuries. He is author of “Banished Immortal: Searching for Shuangqing, China’s Peasant Woman Poet” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).

Next May, Ropp will lead a 12-day tour of China through the Worcester Art Museum.