Benjamin Rush Rhees (/riːz/ 8 February 1860 – 5 January 1939) was the third president of the University of Rochester, serving from 1900 to 1935.

Rhees, great-grandson of radical Baptist minister Morgan John Rhys,[1] earned his undergraduate degrees from Amherst College where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi.

[2] He graduated from the Hartford Theological Seminary and was ordained a Baptist minister.

The Eastman School of Music was begun during Rhees's tenure, as was the university's medical center and the College for Women (1902).

[3] Rush Rhees Library, the main academic library of the University of Rochester, established in 1930 was named after him, as during his tenure, the school went from a small college to a research university.