My sincere thanks to the many subscribers here who wrote to me and to the list
with their thoughts and advice.  It was greatly appreciated.  At the time I
posted, I still hadn't heard from the folks in the computing center of the
college where the death threat posted to my list originated.
 
Because of my reference to Albany, NY, some people assumed I was talking
about a student at SUNY-Albany (sorry about that Mike!).  In fact, the
message was sent from a college which I understand is just outside Albany.
When the computing center personnel showed up for work today, they
immediately yanked this freshman political science student's account.  The
Head of Security was notified, and the matter referred to the Assistant
Vice President for Academic Affairs, who has scheduled a hearing on the
matter.  The postmaster interviewed the student prior to my speaking with
her this afternoon, and she has indicated that she expects that for the
next three years (his remaining time at the college), he will not be
provided with an account.
 
I received calls from two different people in the center concerning the
matter, along with a response to my e-mail message, assuring me that they were
not taking this matter lightly, and asking for more information from me in
order to aid their investigation of the matter.  The student claims that
someone else used his account to sign him up to the list, he believed a friend
was sending him mail, and that he was replying to this friend.  He had no idea
he was posting to a list, and that ca. 600 people would see his message...
 
That's where it stands at the moment.  I can't help but wonder if the
multiple complaints received (some of my subscribers copied me on the
messages they sent to the postmaster and/or on her response) made a
difference in terms of how, and how quickly, they responded in this case,
but I don't really get a sense that they would have taken it any less
seriously if I had been the only person to notify them of the offending
message.
 
Thanks again for your helpful comments, and your expressions of support.
 
Later,
kt