Cornell was awarded a medal "for good speech on the stage" by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received a citation as Woman of the Year by the American Friends of the Hebrew University in 1959. After her role in "St. Joan", she was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Elmira College Smith College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Hobart. Clark University, Ithaca College and Princeton awarded degrees in the 1940s, and Baylor University, Middlebury College and Kenyon College awarded theirs in the 1950s.