The James A. Rhodes Tower, originally known as University Tower, is a 21-story high-rise building on the campus of Cleveland State University in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. With a height of 363 feet (111 m), it is the fourth-tallest educational-purposed building in the United States, behind the Cathedral of Learning, Vertical Campus at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and 25 Park Place in Atlanta which is now owned by Georgia State University. It houses the university's main library on the first eight floors and administration offices for many of the university's academic departments on the upper level floors. It previously held classrooms on the first two floors. It is the tallest structure on the Cleveland State campus, followed by Fenn Tower, and the tallest academic building in Ohio. The tower was named after former Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes who is responsible for signing the legislation that created Cleveland State University on December 18, 1964.

Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. CSU absorbed the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law in 1969. Today it is part of the University System of Ohio, has more than 120,000 alumni, and offers over 200 academic programs amongst eight colleges. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".