A new undergraduate inorganic chemistry laboratory experiment is presented. An introduction of the spectrochemical series and ligand exchange is explored using the coordination complex dirhodium tetraacetate, Rh[subscript 2](OAc)[subscript 4]. Students have measured the absorption spectra of the Rh[subscript 2] complex in the presence of various ligand environments. In dichloromethane solution, Rh[subscript 2](OAc)[subscript 4] displays an absorption feature at 661 nm (222 M[superscript -1] cm[superscript -1]), which shifts to higher energy upon introduction of neutral axial ligands. The magnitude of the shift corresponds to the ligand's placement within the spectrochemical series. Experimental techniques of synthetic coordination chemistry and UV--vis spectroscopy are emphasized in this experiment as well as concepts such as molecular orbital (MO) diagrams and the spectrochemical series.