Most of the 26 regents who run the University of California are chosen in a process involving a ghostly, unnamed committee of 12 people who never meet, produce no public record of their actions, and publish no list of members. Some don’t even know who the other members are.

That’s how it’s been for more than four decades. And that’s how it was this month when Gov. Jerry Brown appointed four new regents, including Lark Park, his own policy adviser, and Peter Guber, co-owner of the Golden State Warriors.

It isn’t supposed to be that way.

“In the selection of the regents,” says the California Constitution, “the governor shall consult an advisory committee” of 12 people: six members of the public, two elected officials (the Assembly speaker and state Senate president), a UC student, a faculty member, an alumnus and the regents chair. Some committee members are appointed by the governor, others by members of the Legislature, and others by faculty and students.

California voters approved the system in 1974 as part of several constitutional changes intended to make the UC regents more responsive to the public. The governing board of the $30 billion university oversees 10 campuses with 238,000 students, five hospitals and three national laboratories.

But six committee members reached by The Chronicle said they are never consulted in the selection of regents — only told shortly before the announcement that choices have been made.

“Typically, I get a heads-up with a phone call that appointments will be happening,” said Rishi Kumar, a Saratoga city councilman and public member of the volunteer advisory committee. “We receive an email with the profiles of the folks that are going to be appointed.”

Whether the governor is breaking the law would be up to a judge, said Jessica Levinson, a law professor and government ethics expert at Loyola Law School.

“But it’s pretty clear that it doesn’t meet our expectation,” she said. “Our general expectation of ‘consult’ is that it’s distinct from ‘informing.’ You wouldn’t say, ‘I’m consulting this person by leaving a note on their door.’”

The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The office did provide the current list of committee members, but not previous lists as requested.

Terms on the advisory committee range from one to four years, the Constitution says. Former state Sen. Gary Hart doesn’t recall how long he has served on it, but said he was appointed by Gov. Gray Davis. Davis left office in 2003.

“The committee hasn’t met for over a decade and does no work,” Hart said. But Brown’s office duly phoned the former senator to let him know of the impending appointments. “I was given a brief biographical description of each and was certainly free to express an opinion on his nominees.” Hart said he did not weigh in, however, because he wasn’t familiar with the names.

It’s unclear whether the committee has ever met.

“I had no recollection of the existence of the committee in my 14 years on the Board of Regents,” said Bill Bagley, who was named a regent by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1988 and served in the state Assembly when voters approved the advisory committee.

Bagley, an expert on government ethics for whom California’s Bagley-Keene open records and open meetings law was named, said the committee should have at least a week to opine on the governor’s preferred regent candidates.

The governor appoints 18 of the 26 voting regents, who serve 12-year terms. The others include one student and seven “ex-officio” regents who serve automatically because of their job. Brown, himself an ex-officio regent, has appointed eight regents since taking office in 2011 — half of them this month. Appointees have a year to be confirmed by the Senate or lose their seat.

Kumar said he learned the names of the four most recent appointees on June 2, the same day the governor announced them. Asked why the governor’s office notified him at all, Kumar said: “Because I am on the selection committee.”

The duties of committee members are often unclear — even to the members themselves.

Cynthia So Schroeder is not only on the advisory committee but holds one of two alumni positions on UC’s Board of Regents.

“I think that as an alumni regent, I’m notified (of regents appointees), but I’m not part of the search,” she said, although nothing in the Constitution says that anyone on the committee is excluded from helping the governor select regents.

Another committee member who asked not to be identified said: “I don’t even know who is on the committee.”

Besides creating the committee, voters in 1974 also changed the state Constitution to say the regents should be “broadly reflective of the economic, cultural, and social diversity of the state, including ethnic minorities and women.”

But the regents aren’t diverse enough, says a group of professors who represent UC faculty. The Council of UC Faculty Associations has complained to the governor and the regents for at least six years about back-room selection of regents they say creates a board top-heavy with financiers, corporate lawyers and other wealthy people.

As evidence of the problem, the group points to revelations by The Chronicle that the regents charge the university thousands of dollars a year for pricey parties and dinners. The day the story appeared last month, regents Chairwoman Monica Lozano and UC President Janet Napolitano announced that the regents will begin paying their own dinner bills.

“When they (the governor and Senate) appoint millionaires to the regents, they shouldn’t be surprised that their appointees think like millionaires and approve high administrator salaries or $300 dinners. After all, that’s their world,” Stanton Glantz, a UCSF professor and president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, told The Chronicle.

“The same Constitution that granted UC autonomy created a process to find regents who look like the people of California the university serves,” he said. “The politicians need to follow it.”

Of the 18 appointed regents, including the four just named, half are financiers, corporate executives, investors, real-estate developers or corporate attorneys. Three are former politicians. One is Brown’s senior policy adviser, and another — a former finance expert at UC — is chief financial officer at a company that supplies technology to a private college in San Francisco. The others are an eye doctor, a Sacramento lobbyist, a nonprofit policy director, and the chancellor of the California Community College system.

“We’d be interested in reviving” the committee’s work, said one of its members, James Chalfant, chairman of UC’s Academic Senate.

“We were not consulted at all,” said Chalfant who, like the others, received a voice mail from the governor’s office the same day the new regents appointees were announced. “It’s very disappointing.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov

UC Board of Regents appointees

The governor appoints 18 of the 26 voting University of California regents, who serve 12-year terms:

Maria Anguino: CFO at Minerva Project Inc .; former vice chancellor, UC Riverside; former executive, UC president’s office; former assistant vice president, Barclays Capital.

Richard C. Blum: Chairman, Blum Capital Partners L .P.; co-chairman, Newbridge Capital LLC .

Dr. William De La Peña: Ophthalmologist and medical director, De La Pe ñ a Eye Clinic.

Gareth Elliott: Partner, lobbying firm Sacramento Advocates Inc .

George Kieffer: Partner, law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP .

Peter Guber: Co-owner, Golden State Warriors; chairman and CEO, Mandalay Entertainment Group.

Sherry L. Lansing: Founder, Sherry Lansing Foundation; former chairwoman and CEO, Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group.

Monica Lozano: Owner, newspaper “La Opinión”; board chairwoman, US Hispanic Media Inc .

Hadi Makarechian: Chairman, Makar Properties board of directors and Banning Lewis Ranch Management Co.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley: Chancellor, California Community Colleges.

Lark Park: Senior policy adviser, Gov. Jerry Brown.

Norman J. Pattiz: CEO, Courtside Entertainment Group; founder and former board chairman, Westwood One.

John A. Pérez: Former speaker, California A ssembly; former political director, California Labor Federation.

Bonnie Reiss: Global director, Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy at the University of Southern California.

Richard Sherman: CEO, Geffen Co.

Ellen Tauscher: Adviser, law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz; former congresswoman representing the East Bay.

Bruce D. Varner: Partner, law firm Varner & Brandt.

Charlene Zettel: Former assemblywoman and Republican Caucus chair; former CEO, Donate Life California.