The Massachusetts Institute Of Technology is addressing their future by uncovering their past. One of the school's professors, Craig Steven Wilde, has been leading research in connecting the dots between universities and slavery, and MIT sought to discover where their roots lie.

Last fall, the institute developed a  primary-research course, called "MIT and Slavery," that links the connection of the university's history to slavery. So far, this course has uncovered shocking information about MIT. 

Some of those findings included evidence of how racial attitudes influenced student publications and curriculum. Students also discovered from an 1850 Virginia census document that the founding president of MIT, William Barton Roger, owned six slaves before moving to Boston. 

L. Rafael Reif, President of MIT, said in a statement obtained by Blavity: 

"I am certain that we have nothing to fear from examining our past; understanding it better can only make us wiser," he said. "I have already learned a great deal from listening to other people's perspectives on the findings, and I look forward to our reflecting on this new knowledge as a community." 

Reif hopes this information will be used to tell a more complete and accurate story of MIT's History.

"We must start thinking together about how to tell a complete version of our history," he said. 

The school will continue to keep dialogue around this conversation open. Their first event "MIT and the Legacy of Slavery: Reviewing the Early Findings," will take place Feb. 16